INSIDE  THE 
BRITISH    ISLES 

ARTHUR  GLEASON 


CHAUTAUQUA 
HOME  READING  SERIES 


A.F. 


THE 


INSIDE 
THE  BRITISH  ISLES 


BY 

ARTHUR  GLEASON 
1 1 

AUTHOR  OF  "GOLDEN  LADS,"  ETC. 


CfmutatHjua 

CHAUTAUQUA,  NEW  YORK 
MCMXVIII 


,  1917,  by 
THE  CENTURY  Co. 


Published,  May,  1917 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

....       3 

II     LABOE 14 

The  Social  Revolution  in  England     .      .      14 

The  Discovery 41 

Democratic  Control      .      .      .      .      .      .53 

The  Pioneers 68 

Reasonable  Satisfaction 89 

III  WOMEN 95 

Emancipation 95 

The  Feminists  of  the  War  Office  and  Ad- 
miralty       118 

Bowing  Them  Out 127 

Disorganization 144 

England's  Policewomen 154 

IV  IEELAND 173 

The  Irish  Question 173 

Young  England  Speaks 186 

The  Siamese  Twin 192 

Poverty:  The  Real  Irish  Question     .      .  206 

V     SOCIAL  STUDIES .   228 

What  of  England? 228 


428838 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Why  They  Will  Win 231 

Dragons'  Teeth 242 

Change 250 

A  Batch  of  Papers 260 

Free  Speech .274 

The  Right  of  Asylum 281 

Public  Opinion 295 

Where  the  Lane  Turns 307 

The  New  Way 315 

The  New  Americanism 320 

Nationality 330 

VI     LLOYD-GEORGE 341 

VII     VALE 350 

APPENDIX 357 

INDEX  .  .   423 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH 
ISLES 


CHAPTER  I 

DEMOCRACY  ON  THE  MARCH 

ENGLAND  has  acted  on  the  world  as  a  principle 
of  release  for  freedom,  sometimes  by  irritating  it 
into  activity,  as  with  the  American  colonies, 
sometimes  by  cooperating  with  it,  as  in  Canada 
and  Australia.  The  balance  of  power  has  de- 
parted from  England  to  a  wider  area.  But  the 
principle  of  government  which  creates  and  directs 
that  power  continues  to  be  an  English  principle. 
It  is  the  principle  of  democratic  control.  One 
hundred  years  ago  England  was  in  a  war  in  which 
her  three  leaders  were  Pitt,  Wellington,  and  Nel- 
son, three  Englishmen.  To-day  Great  Britain  is 
in  a  war  in  which  her  three  leaders  are  Lloyd- 
George,  Haig,  and  Beatty,  a  Welshman,  a 
Scotchman,  and  an  Irishman.  That  is  of  course 

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INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

only  a  chance  illustration,  but  it  serves  to  show 
the  fact  that  the  field  of  opportunity  has  broad- 
ened, and  that  England  is  no  longer  the  over- 
shadowing power  in  a  union,  but  is  the  equal 
among  equals. 

If  that  extension  of  power  among  her  mem- 
bers is  true  of  England  on  her  island,  it  is  also 
true  of  her  among  her  colonies.  Already  the  new 
cabinet  has  called  the  dominions  to  a  special  war 
conference.  This  is  the  first  step  in  a  momentous 
change  in  the  constitution  of  the  empire.  The 
peoples  of  the  dominions  are  not  contented  with 
their  status,  and  they  refuse  to  go  on  indefinitely 
under  the  present  arrangement,  which  focuses  all 
imperial  responsibility  in  the  hands  of  statesmen 
of  the  British  Isles.  They  determined  to  have  a 
voice  in  foreign  policy,  and  in  the  creation  of  an 
interlocking  imperial  domestic  policy,  which  will 
organize  the  resources  of  Canada,  Australia, 
New  Zealand,  South  Africa,  and  India.  The 
constitutional  reconstruction  calls  for  an  imperial 
cabinet,  answerable  in  authority  to  an  imperial 
parliament  of  all  the  democracies  of  the  empire. 

The  result  of  this  will  be  the  most  populous, 
largest,  most  powerful  state  in  the  world,  and  that 

4 


DEMOCRACY  ON  THE  MARCH 

state  will  not  be  an  autocracy.  It  will  be  a  com- 
monwealth, an  agreement  of  equals.  It  will  act 
from  one  will,  with  one  purpose.  The  operations 
of  that  will  inside  so  vast  an  organism  will  seem 
almost  like  a  process  of  nature.  Its  influence 
will  be  decisive  on  the  immediate  future  of  the 
human  race.  Under  the  perfected  internal  or- 
ganization, which  is  the  very  purpose  of  the  union, 
the  food-supply  of  a  quarter  of  mankind  will  be 
guaranteed.  The  land  question  will  be  solved. 
The  balance  of  agriculture  to  industry  will  be 
determined  and  established.  The  problems  of 
labor  will  be  dealt  with  in  a  freedom  of  opportu- 
nity and  an  increase  of  productive  power  which 
would  have  seemed  Utopian  to  an  earlier  genera- 
tion. That  imperial  parliament  will  be  a  league 
of  peace  which  will  give  the  first  stable  basis  for  a 
world  peace. 

This  will  be  the  greatest  extension  of  demo- 
cratic control  ever  applied  to  the  map  of  the 
world.  The  dimensions  of  it  are  so  large  that  the 
imagination  even  of  its  projectors  has  not  wak- 
ened to  what  it  implies.  A  great  organism  of 
democracies,  excepting  only  India,  will  exist  in 
a  world  still  half  in  political  bondage.  It  will 

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INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

carry  its  community  far  along  in  the  twofold  pur- 
pose of  all  government — the  control  of  environ- 
ment and  the  betterment  of  human  relationships. 
Suppose  the  bundle  of  states  in  Europe  were  sud- 
denly to  be  thrown  together  in  a  vast  republican 
state  of  common  purpose,  determined  on  a  uni- 
fied domestic  and  foreign  policy,  then  we  should 
have  no  more  amazing  entity  than  in  this  plan  of 
the  new  British  commonwealth.  Impossible,  of 
course,  for  Europe,  because  there  is  no  central 
principle,  overriding  differences  of  tradition, 
race,  and  language;  but  possible  and  about  to  be 
consummated  in  the  empire,  because  the  central 
principle  of  democratic  control  is  accepted,  and 
because  the  kinship  of  blood  and  language  exists. 
And  it  is  all  so  obvious.  The  synthesis,  once 
stated,  demands  its  own  realization.  It  is  like 
the  enlightenment  which  the  faithful  believe  we 
shall  receive  after  death,  when  we  shall  say, 
"Why,  of  course." 

Such  is  the  dream  which  British  statesmen  will 
proceed  to  put  into  execution  at  the  close  of  the 
war.  It  is  the  war  whose  pressure  has  coalesced 
these  five  democracies,  each  busy  with  its  own  self- 
contained  and  isolated  life.  A  common  danger 

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DEMOCRACY  ON  THE  MARCH 

and  a  common  experience  of  suffering  forced  the 
realization  of  what  a  thoroughgoing  partnership 
would  bring  in  organization  for  industry  and  in 
the  attainment  of  a  good  life.  The  war  created  a 
highly  desirable  friction  between  Great  Britain 
and  her  colonial  democracies,  which  revealed  the 
present  unsatisfactory  status  and  the  need  of  a 
new  order.  Out  of  that  friction  has  come  the 
vision  of  the  new  commonwealth. 

In  the  light  of  this  far-flung  scheme,  the  cab- 
inet changes  at  Westminster  seem  petty.  But 
they  are  actually  in  part  a  response  to  it.  In 
England's  reach  toward  this  new  synthesis  she  has 
instinctively  turned  to  the  men  who  have  shown, 
either  recently  or  in  long  years  of  service,  an  un- 
derstanding that  England  is  not  the  British  Em- 
pire, but  that  the  British  Empire  is  in  process  of 
becoming  itself  a  single  state,  the  greatest  in  the 
world.  The  changes  in  the  ministry  are  not  alone 
expressions  of  the  desire  to  win  the  war,  but  they 
indicate  a  drift  of  thought,  only  half -conscious 
as  yet,  toward  the  future  commonwealth,  toward 
the  unification  of  the  little  unrelated  democracies 
which  England  has  sown  around  the  world. 

The  British  democracy  believes  it  has  found  its 

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INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

group  of  leaders  for  the  present  crisis  in  the  new 
cabinet.  Its  will  is  to  win  the  war,  and  it  begins, 
though  dimly,  to  sense  the  need  of  imperial  recon- 
struction. When  the  need  swings  back  acutely 
to  the  internal  problems  of  labor  adjustment,  this 
cabinet  will  be  swiftly  displaced  if  it  fails  to  func- 
tion in  the  new  demand,  or  certain  of  its  members 
will  pass  over  to  the  new  imperial  ministry  and 
parliament.  The  British  public  has  to  think  in 
three  separate  and  almost  unrelated  provinces. 
It  finds  itself  unable  to  do  this  simultaneously,  so 
it  takes  them  up  in  turn.  It  expresses  that  shift 
of  attention  by  cabinet  changes.  It  has  to  think 
in  terms  of  domestic  policy,  of  imperial  policy, 
and  of  international  policy.  The  Tory  type  of 
mind  has  a  traditional  imperial  and  foreign  policy 
which  is  firm,  clear-cut,  and  which  carries  a  weight 
of  experience.  (I  am  not  speaking  of  "politics" 
in  using  the  word  "Tory."  I  am  speaking  of  the 
political  philosophy,  the  type  of  mind,  of  such 
men  as  Milner,  Balfour,  Bonar  Law,  Curzon,  and 
Carson.)  So,  when  the  democracy  found  itself 
at  grips  with  a  crisis  which  calls  for  an  imperial 
and  foreign  policy,  it  turned  to  leaders  who  in- 
herited that  tradition  and  who  therefore  could  an- 

8 


DEMOCRACY  ON  THE  MARCH 

swer  the  immediate  need.  The  claim  of  certain 
observers  that  the  present  group  of  imperial  ex- 
ecutives, agricultural  and  educational  experts, 
and  business  captains,  are  a  reactionary  force, 
revealing  the  breakdown  of  democracy  in  time  of 
strain,  is  a  failure  to  see  one  of  the  central  prin- 
ciples of  democratic  government.  Democratic 
government  is  a  government  by  experts,  inter- 
preting the  collective  will  of  the  people.  We 
shall  probably  see  a  series  of  cabinet  shifts  in  the 
next  five  years,  as  each  of  the  three  great  prob- 
lems of  British  policy  is  taken  up.  The  lime- 
light will  flit  from  Manchester  and  South  Wales 
to  Ireland,  and  then  to  Australia,  and  then  to 
Russia,  and  public  opinion  will  demand  a  very 
distinct  set  of  faculties,  and  therefore  of  leaders, 
in  dealing  with  each  of  these  various  questions. 

Since  the  war  began  many  persons  have  asked, 
Can  a  democracy  produce  leaders  of  the  same 
merit  as  an  autocracy?  And  the  answer  has 
often  been  No,  But  the  question  fails  to  state 
the  problem.  War  leaders  are  one  requirement, 
imperial  leaders  are  another,  and  the  creators  of 
domestic  policy  are  a  third.  Let  us  state  the  need 
in  these  terms ; 

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INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

1.  Can  a  democracy  produce  leaders  in  peace 
times  who  can  shape  legislation  and  give  guidance 
to  the  democratic  movement?     The  mass  of  the 
people  have  developed  a  collective  will,  which  de- 
mands a  reconstruction  of  the  state,  expressed  in 
terms  of  parliamentary  control   (manhood  suf- 
frage, the  predominance  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons over  the  House  of  Lords) ;  and  a  recon- 
struction of  industry  and  the  institution  of  prop- 
erty, expressed  in  terms  of  social  legislation,  af- 
fecting land  reform,  minimum  wage,  and  control 
of  collective  enterprise,  such  as  mines  and  rail- 
ways, and  further  expressed  in  free  experiment 
outside  legal  enactment,  though  later  to  be  in- 
corporated in  legislative  acts,  such  as  workshop 
councils.     Those  leaders  of  peace  Great  Britain 
produced.     Her  swift  adjustments  to  the  de- 
mands of  modern  self-conscious  democracy  have 
proved  that  she  is  the  fertile  mother  of  democratic 
initiative. 

2.  Can  a  democracy  produce  leaders  under  the 
strain    of    international   crisis   who    can   carry 
through  a  determined  policy  demanding  organi- 
zation, efficiency,  applied  science,  and  a  spiritual 
unity?    This  requirement  is  distinct  from  the  re- 

10 


DEMOCRACY  ON  THE  MARCH 

quirements  of  a  wise  domestic  policy.  The  rea- 
son is  plain.  The  dealings  of  a  nation  with  its 
citizens  have  reached  a  level  of  sanity,  intelligence, 
and  ethical  decency  which  the  dealings  of  nation 
with  nation  have  not  reached.  Internationally, 
we  are  in  the  jungle.  To  handle  these  interna- 
tional relationships  of  greed  and  hate,  the  nation 
has  to  employ  brute  force.  It  has  to  turn  its 
farmers  into  killers.  It  has  to  make  shells  in 
place  of  workers'  cottages.  But  even  while  this 
need  is  most  acute,  and  because  it  is  acute,  there 
arose  in  Great  Britain  the  demand  for  a  policy 
which  would  draw  the  sprawled-out  empire  into 
one  state.  The  present  cabinet  is  the  answer  to 
that  demand. 

To  the  question,  Can  a  democracy  produce 
leaders?  the  British  people  reply  that  they  are 
selecting  their  leaders  according  to  their  need,  and 
that,  in  doing  so,  they  are  proving  a  democratic 
principle.  It  is  not  an  abrogation  of  the  demo- 
cratic principle  when  a  people  turns  to  its  ex- 
perts. It  is  one  expression  of  the  democratic 
principle.  For  democracy  brought  in  two  things 
when  it  entered  life  with  the  organization  of  the 
industrial  revolution.  It  brought  in  a  mass 

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INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

movement  and  it  brought  in  specialization.  The 
collective  will  must  always  turn  to  experts  to  or- 
ganize its  desires  into  action.  It  will  control 
those  experts,  but  it  will  never  supersede  them. 
It  exercises  its  control  in  the  choice  of  them,  not 
in  itself  attempting  tasks  of  which  it  is  ignorant. 
A  democracy  in  itself  can  liberate  only  an  im- 
pulse. It  cannot  frame  emergency  measures  by 
initiative  and  referendum.  It  will  always  be 
called  on  from  time  to  time  to  pass  over  its  power 
to  a  handful  of  specialists  and  trust  them  to  use 
its  mass  momentum  in  the  right  direction  toward 
the  desired  end. 

The  democratic  movement  began  consciously 
with  the  purpose  of  freeing  the  human  race  from 
poverty.  But  it  has  steadily  undergone  a  broad- 
ening of  purpose  under  the  pressure  of  its  own 
requirements.  It  has  found  that  for  self-preser- 
vation it  must  include  the  release  of  talent  and  the 
creation  of  spiritual  values  in  its  program.  To 
produce  leaders  and  to  enhance  the  meaning  of 
life  are  as  much  within  its  province  as  a  proper 
standard  of  living  in  terms  of  hours  and  wages. 
It  recognizes  its  need  of  an  aristocracy  of  talent. 
The  leaders  of  the  democratic  movement  state 

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DEMOCRACY  ON  THE  MARCH 

this:  such  men  as  A.  E.,  Wells,  Zimmern,  and 
Sidney  Webb.  This  aristocracy  will  include  so- 
cial experts,  artists,  ethical  leaders,  teachers,  im- 
perial executives,  organizers,  and  specialists  in 
foreign  policy.  War  is  only  one  of  the  many 
situations  where  the  democracy,  with  its  dis- 
tributed responsibility,  does  not  possess  in  itself 
the  necessary  intelligence  and  unity  of  policy  to 
master  the  sudden  crisis.  The  democracy  is  only 
fulfilling  its  own  nature  in  recognizing  a  diversity 
of  gifts. 

But  through  all  the  adjustments  of  the  coming 
years,  calling  for  expert  treatment,  the  principle 
of  democratic  control  will  prevail.  In  time  the 
democracy  will  develop  its  own  tradition  of  pol- 
icy and  service  and  generate  its  own  leaders. 
The  common  people  of  Great  Britain  have  never 
spoken.  It  was  therefore  believed  they  were 
dumb.  But  they  were  not  dumb ;  they  were  only 
inarticulate.  The  common  people  of  Great  Brit- 
ain have  never  acted  with  common  purpose  to  one 
end.  It  was  therefore  believed  that  they  were 
impotent.  But  they  were  not  impotent;  they 
were  only  unawakened.  Now  they  are  learning 
to  speak  and  to  act. 

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CHAPTER  II 

LABOR 

THE   SOCIAL   BEVOLUTION   IN   ENGLAND 

THE  opinion  has  been  wide-spread  among  so- 
cial workers  in  America  that  the  war  has  crushed 
liberalism  in  England.  They  have  formed  this 
opinion  because  social  work  has  been  postponed, 
trade-union  rules  have  been  abrogated,  dissenters 
like  Bertrand  A.  W.  Russell  silenced,  Russian 
revolutionary  centers  in  London  suppressed. 
But  it  is  a  characteristic  of  experts  working  in 
details  to  miss  the  main  currents  of  tendency. 
No  friend  of  radical  democracy  need  be  worried 
by  the  results  of  the  last  two  years.  The  blood 
spilled  by  the  working-classes  at  the  front  has 
been  justified  by  the  profound  modifications 
wrought  in  English  consciousness.  A  nation 
mobilized  and  under  arms  is  a  rich  field  for  radi- 
cal ideas.  Blood  fertilizes  the  soil  for  change. 
Those  of  the  school  of  Curzon  and  Gwynne,  who 

14 


LABOR 

believed  that  the  good  old  days  of  special  privilege 
would  be  restored  by  conscription,  are  doomed  to 
an  awakening  more  thorough  than  befell  the 
French  reactionaries  of  1790.  For  this  is  not  an 
affair  of  a  few  noble  heads.  It  is  the  remaking  of 
a  nation. 

England  is  taking  strides  toward  cooperative 
socialism.  For  the  first  time  in  their  history,  the 
English  are  thinking  in  terms  of  a  state — "a 
modern  state,  in  all  its  complexity,  with  scientific 
laws  and  regulations."  This  is  a  view  "utterly 
strange  to  English  thought,  steeped  as  it  always 
had  been  in  empiricism,  and  only  inclined  to  such 
piecemeal  legislation  as  a  particular  grievance 
or  a  particular  occasion  might  demand."  I  am 
quoting  a  government  investigator.  These  tend- 
encies were  already  in  operation  before  the  war ; 
but  what  might  have  required  twenty-five  years 
to  bring  to  a  head,  the  war  has  accelerated,  inten- 
sified, and  even  altered. 

It  is  a  misreading  of  English  character  to  think 
that  anything  remotely  resembling  the  state  so- 
cialism of  Germany,  the  card-indexing  of  the 
community  for  vocational  training,  the  regiment- 
ing of  the  intellectual  life  into  a  body  of  state- 

15 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

controlled  professors,  will  result  from  the  present 
English  revolution.  The  social  change  in  Eng- 
land is  not  coming  with  any  such  over-emphasized 
nationalism.  The  Englishman  wants  to  be  let 
alone  for  all  his  personal  choices.  He  wants  to 
disagree  with  official  statements.  He  will  not  be 
coerced  even  for  "his  good,"  as  that  good  is  seen 
by  another.  Nor  will  the  change  come  as  an  in- 
determinate, spreading  internationalism,  such  as 
has  infected  radical  thought  for  half  a  century. 
It  will  be  English,  inside  an  English  environ- 
ment. 

There  are  two  truths  so  plain  that  we  wonder 
it  required  a  hundred  years  to  find  them  out.  It 
is  the  war  that  has  finally  revealed  them  to  our 
blind  eyes.  The  first  truth  is  that  high  wages 
give  high  productiveness.  A  well-fed,  self-re- 
specting, healthy  workman  can  do  more  work 
than  an  under-nourished,  servile  workman.  If 
the  employer  wants  a  good  product  and  plenty  of 
it,  he  must  pay  a  living  wage.  The  second  truth 
is  that  workmen  must  work  efficiently  if  they 
wish  high  wages.  If  they  cut  down  productive- 
ness there  is  no  money  to  pay  them.  The  war  has 
smoked  the  workers  out.  Their  sacred  secret 

16 


LABOR 

processes  which  required  hours  to  work  have 
turned  out  as  simple  as  building-blocks.  It  is 
public  knowledge  now,  the  time  it  takes  to  do  a 
piece  of  factory  work.  For  years  the  worker  has 
been  limiting  his  output.  A  manufacturer  of 
marine  engines  states  that  where  thirteen  rivets 
were  turned  out  before  the  war,  seventy  are  now 
being  made  by  the  same  number  of  workers. 
The  worker  is  making  the  same  fight  here  that  he 
made  when  he  broke  the  first  machines.  The  ma- 
chines were  robbing  him  of  his  living,  he  thought. 
Instead  of  that,  they  have  given  more  men  a  bet- 
ter living.  Of  late  years  the  worker  has  been 
fighting  his  own  productivity.  How  is  shrinking 
wealth  to  give  him  an  expanding  wage?  Where 
is  the  money  to  come  from?  As  a  method  in  a 
given  emergency,  sabotage  and  limitation  of  out- 
put are  effective ;  but  as  a  nation-wide  policy  they 
are  instruments  that  cut  the  hands  of  the  user. 
The  trade-unions  surrender  their  hard-won  regu- 
lations, and  suddenly  production  leaps  up  as  if 
it  had  been  released  from  a  dead-weight.  They 
are  still  insisting  on  government  guarantees  that 
the  old  restrictions  will  be  handed  back  to  them 
after  the  war.  It  would  be  flattering  to  write 

17 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

that  it  is  by  labor  that  the  constructive  thinking 
is  being  done,  but  it  would  be  untrue.  There  is 
absence  of  patient  thought,  lack  of  a  constructive 
program,  the  muddle  of  a  helpless  creature  caught 
unawares  in  a  tidal  wave. 

It  was  the  making  of  shells  that  taught  Eng- 
land the  new  synthesis  of  capital  and  labor.  Sud- 
denly she  was  forced  to  turn  out  huge  quantities 
of  a  product  in  order  to  save  the  lives  of  her  peo- 
ple. Under  that  tragic  pressure  she  had  to  learn 
overnight  how  to  get  a  large  product.  She  be- 
gan in  the  manner  dear  to  ruling  classes:  she 
started  an  old-time  "personal-morality"  cam- 
paign of  the  evangelistic  sort,  and  her  most  gifted 
exhorter,  Lloyd-George,  went  out  to  down  drink. 
She  then  preached  thrift  to  the  factory-worker. 
But  she  soon  dropped  that  way  of  getting  at  it; 
she  stopped  lecturing  the  laboring-man  for  his  bad 
habits. 

And  swiftly  she  found  the  solution.  It  is  this : 
State  ownership  of  some  factories ;  state  control 
of  many  factories;  state  oversight  of  an  ever-in- 
creasing number  of  factories;  a  conscription  of 
abnormal  profits  for  the  community;  a  living 
wage;  decent  working  conditions;  limited  hours 

18 


LABOR 

of  labor;  no  restriction  of  output;  no  sabotage; 
no  discrimination  by  workers  against  workers, 
but  all  to  be  employed,  union  and  non-union, 
male  and  female ;  efficiency ;  the  use  of  machinery 
up  to  its  capacity  instead  of  dribbling  a  process 
through  a  day  where  a  half-day  of  proper  han- 
dling would  have  completed  the  product. 

There  are  broken  planks  all  along  the  length 
of  this  platform.  But  every  sag  has  meant  de- 
creased output,  a  longer  war,  more  young  men 
killed  in  battle.  And  once  England  had  settled 
the  main  question  with  a  measure  of  honesty,  she 
found  that  some  other  things  were  added  unto 
her.  When  she  paid  a  living  wage  to  people  who 
had  never  had  it  before,  and  put  before  them  a 
national  ideal  instead  of  a  benefit  for  another 
class,  she  found  that  two  million  persons  joined 
her  national  savings  fund,  thereby  breaking  an 
immemorial  British  habit.  She  found  that  her 
prisons  had  fewer  inmates,  that  the  personal 
morality  of  her  inhabitants  was  in  the  main  im- 
proved. She  found  that  her  school  children  in 
factory  communities  were  better  nourished  than 
they  had  been  in  the  memory  of  the  examining 
physicians.  She  found  that  her  woman  question 

19 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

solved  itself.  The  very  suffragette  leaders,  such 
as  Mrs.  Drummond  and  Mrs.  Pankhurst,  who 
had  put  gray  hairs  on  Lloyd-George's  head  and 
lines  of  worry  into  his  face,  recruited  soldiers,  ex- 
plained the  national  need  to  the  men  miners  of  the 
north  counties,  assisted  in  organizing  masses  of 
"unemployable"  women  into  industrial  workers, 
and  were  welcomed  by  Lloyd-George  and  the 
Government  as  efficient  helpers  in  unifying  the 
nation.  And,  far  more  important  than  the  co- 
operation of  a  handful  of  leaders,  the  unrest  and 
discontent  of  large  numbers  of  women  became 
transformed  into  energy. 

While  it  is  true  that  only  half  a  million  women 
have  entered  industry,  that  figure  is  only  a  frac- 
tion of  the  number  of  women  who  have  trans- 
ferred their  activity  from  domestic  service  and  the 
parasitic  trades  into  the  main  channels  of  in- 
dustry. In  munitions  alone  five  hundred  thou- 
sand women  have  stepped  over  from  unregulated 
hours  and  low  wages  to  sharply  defined  hours  and 
comparatively  high  wages.  These  women,  and 
several  hundred  thousand  others  in  factory  pro- 
cesses, in  railway,  tram-car,  and  omnibus  work, 
and  in  business  superintendence,  have  "tasted 

20 


LABOR 

blood."  By  that  I  mean  they  have  won  an  in- 
creased freedom  and  independence,  however  im- 
perfect even  yet,  and  a  higher  wage.  To  send 
them  "  home"  will  prove  a  task  larger  than  the 
paper  resolutions  of  any  men's  trade-union,  that 
women  workers  must  give  up  then*  jobs. 

It  is  one  more  of  time's  ironic  revenges  that  it 
is  the  entrance  of  women  upon  the  scene  which  has 
precipitated  social  questions  to  solution,  where  be- 
fore they  were  seething  in  separate,  repellent  ele- 
ments. Woman's  long  campaign  for  the  vote 
supplied  the  needed  intellectual  criticism  of  plural 
voting  and  of  suffrage  restricted  to  a  prop- 
erty qualification.  "Manhood"  suffrage  will  be 
granted.  It  is  not  possible  for  a  nation  to  deny 
a  vote  to  men  who  have  been  ready  to  die  for  that 
nation.  This  manhood  suffrage  will  include 
votes  for  women,  for  the  women  have  mobilized 
with  an  equal  loyalty. 

Woman's  irritating  presence  in  industry  has 
emphasized  the  demand  for  proper  working  con- 
ditions. It  has  sharpened  the  wage  controversy, 
and  it  has  revealed  the  need  of  far-reaching  meas- 
ures to  deal  with  the  unemployment  situation  that 
the  nation  will  face  on  the  day  of  peace.  Women 

21 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

are  not  going  to  enter  industry.  They  have  al- 
ready entered  it,  and  half  a  million  fresh  workers 
have  been  added.  It  is  clear  that  increasing  the 
number  of  workers  does  not  lessen  the  problem 
of  a  living  wage.  There  is  only  one  answer  to 
the  violently  acute  situation  which  has  been 
forced  by  these  women,  and  which  will  come  to 
a  crisis  when  five  million  men  hang  their  khaki  in 
the  closet.  The  areas  of  production  must  be 
widened  not  tenderly  and  with  the  imperceptible 
gradualness  of  a  natural  process,  but  swiftly. 

(1)  The  land  must  be  broken  up  into  small 
holdings.     Cooperation  in  produce  and  market- 
ing must  be  practised  among  the  peasant  tenants. 
Ireland  has  blazed  the  way  here. 

(2)  The  state  must  institute  fields  of  activity 
at  home,  helping  to  establish  new  industries,  such 
as  dye-works.     It  must  make  use  of  an  immense 
amount  of  new  automatic  machinery,  installed  to 
make  shells,  and  adapted  to  an  expansion  of  gen- 
eral engineering  work  and  to  the  creation  of  new 
industries.     The  head  of  a  motor-car  company 
told  me  that  two  thirds  of  his  present  machinery 
has  been  created  since  the  war.     The  report  of 
the  British  Association  states,  "For  the  first  time 

22 


LABOR 

in  the  history  of  the  west  of  Scotland  engineering 
shops  had  been  filled  with  modern  machine  tools." 
This  enormous  investment  cannot  be  scrapped. 

(3)  The  state  must  greatly  extend  its  sphere 
of  activities  throughout  the  empire  in  cattle-rais- 
ing, in  developing  raw  lands,  in  producing  com- 
modities from  the  land. 

These  methods  will  be  used  to  meet  the  unem- 
ployment situation  by  furnishing  new  jobs,  and  to 
meet  the  burden  of  increased  taxation  by  giving 
an  increased  income.  The  larger  program  will  of 
course  be  postponed  till  its  advocates  are  more 
numerous  and  better  organized.  Such  a  pro- 
gram will  include : 

(1)  An  extension  of  transportation  facilities, 
a  greatly  enlarged  use  of  waterways,  the  building 
of  new  and  better  roads. 

(2)  Improved  housing.     The  foul  slums  of 
great  cities  and  towns,  the  vile  homes  of  agri- 
cultural laborers,  will  have  to  be  razed  by  as  dras- 
tic a  plan  as  that  by  which  Haussmann  drew  his 
blue  pencil  down  through  the  jungle  of  Paris. 
New  dwellings  in  the  place  of  the  "lung  blocks" 
must  be  built. 

(3)  Afforestation.     If   it   proves   true   that 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

there  are  several  million  acres  in  the  British  Isles 
that  are  unfit  for  intensive  agriculture,  this  area 
affords  an  opportunity  for  forest  development, 
which  in  eighty  years  would  offer  rich  returns  to 
the  state. 

Under  such  an  extension  of  enterprise  there 
would  be  plenty  of  work  after  the  war,  and  there- 
fore plenty  of  jobs.  The  problem  is  how  to  ob- 
tain the  money  with  which  to  finance  the  work. 
The  war  has  shown  how  to  get  the  money.  The 
conscription  of  profits,  death  duties,  and  the  taxa- 
tion of  incomes  have  availed,  with  new  areas  of 
production,  to  give  a  more  wide-spread,  better- 
distributed  prosperity  to  England  than  she  en- 
joyed before  the  war.  It  is  the  line  of  solution 
that  will  be  enforced  after  the  war.  The  exact 
pressure  that  will  enforce  it  is  the  demand  for  a 
continuation  of  the  present  high  wages. 

This  program  is  being  postponed  as  long  as 
possible.  Its  items  will  be  applied  unevenly,  and 
parts  will  go  neglected.  Committees  of  Parlia- 
ment are  sure  to  bring  in  ingenious  little  outlines 
for  legislation,  which  will  affect  a  few  thousand 
workers,  while  the  army  will  demobilize  at  the 
rate  of  five  thousand  a  day.  But  for  every  fail- 

M 


LABOR 

ure  in  boldness  and  energy,  for  every  lag  in  ex- 
ecution, the  nation  will  pay  in  decreased  exports, 
falling  wages,  the  pressure  of  taxation,  and  a 
wrangle  between  masters  and  men.  The  new 
order  of  life  is  still  badly  delayed  at  many  points. 
The  lot  of  the  agricultural  laborer  is  miserable. 
The  "East  Ends"  of  the  industrial  cities  remain 
sodden.  An  immense  number  of  workers  are  be- 
ing underpaid,  for  the  rise  in  wages  has  reached 
only  a  fraction.  A  ministry  of  commerce  and  a 
ministry  of  labor  are  needed  at  once,  and  in  the 
ministry  of  labor  there  should  be  a  department 
for  women's  work,  conducted  by  women  under- 
secretaries. 

Wages  and  hours  remain  the  heart  of  the  social 
movement.  The  emphasis  will  not  shift  from 
wages  and  hours.  But  a  new  demand  has  been 
added  to  these  "old  timers.'*  It  is  the  demand  by 
labor  for  a  voice  in  the  control  of  its  working 
conditions.  Mr.  Lloyd-George  responded  to  this 
demand  by  greatly  increasing  the  scope  of  wel- 
fare work  in  factories.  Through  the  famous 
manufacturer  and  social  worker,  Seebohm 
Rowntree,  he  has  put  protective  agencies  at  work 
in  munition  factories  which  affect  the  lives  of  half 

25 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

a  million  persons  who  were  not  safeguarded  to 
the  same  extent  formerly.  This  safeguarding  is 
done  by  welfare  secretaries,  whose  duty  it  is  to 
study  the  health,  home 'conditions,  and  sanitary 
appliances  of  women.  Grievances  of  workers 
are  laid  before  these  secretaries.  Welfare  secre- 
taries are  not  a  new  arrival  in  British  industry, 
but  there  were  few  of  them  in  relation  to  the  im- 
mense numbers  of  factories  and  workers.  This 
movement  toward  conducting  industry  in  its  so- 
cial relationship  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
worker  is  in  its  beginning.  Labor  will  press  on 
for  an  increasing  recognition  of  its  right  to  be 
heard  in  management  in  workshop  adjustments, 
the  speed  of  machinery,  rest-times,  hours  of  work, 
details  of  discipline,  and  the  grading  of  labor. 

As  this  tide  of  reform  rises  higher,  there  is  a 
back  wash.  Class  education,  land  monopoly,  a 
state  church,  persist  down  to  our  own  day.  Eng- 
land has  continued  in  a  modified,  far  less  harsh 
form  those  special  privileges  of  a  ruling  class  that 
in  France  led  to  the  overthrow  of  the  nobility  and 
the  clergy.  The  industrial  revolution  of  a  cen- 
tury ago  suddenly  altered  the  texture  of  feudal 
English  life,  just  as  it  would  have  altered  France 

26 


LABOR 

without  the  French  Revolution.  It  added  a  new 
upper  layer  to  the  pressure  from  overhead  on  the 
manual  worker  in  agriculture  and  industry,  at  the 
same  time  that  it  gave  an  ever-increasing  popula- 
tion a  share  in  the  means  of  production.  But  the 
coming  of  machinery,  creating  a  new  world,  was 
powerless  in  England  to  disturb  the  big  land 
holdings,  the  church,  and  restricted  education. 
They  have  continued  to  govern  the  conditions  of 
life.  The  best  defense  of  the  class  system  which 
I  have  recently  seen  is  that  given  in  lectures  to 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania  by  Geoffrey  But- 
ler under  the  title  of  "The  Tory  Tradition." 
He  clearly  shows  the  contribution  which  has  been 
made  by  the  Tory  rejection  of  a  utilitarian  stand- 
ard, their  distrust  of  sectional  control,  their  in- 
sistence on  the  organic  conception  of  the  state, 
their  belief  in  the  power  of  tradition  and  the  an- 
cient processes  of  government,  their  emphasis  on 
national  duties,  and  therefore  on  a  far-sighted 
foreign  policy.  He  says,  "Our  system  of  classes 
represents  the  effect  of  selection  by  the  capacity 
to  govern."  And  again,  "Heredity  is  no  Tory 
invention,  but  a  scientific  fact." 

In  any  analysis  of  unseemly  class  prepon 
27 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

derance  the  honest  student  of  English  conditions 
has  to  qualify  the  downright  statement.  Thus 
the  landed  gentry  have  often  exercised  a'personal 
care  for  their  tenants  and  the  village  community 
that  the  modern  liberal  captain  of  industry  has 
sometimes  neglected  to  exercise  toward  his  em- 
ployees. But  the  land  monopoly  has  prevented 
England  from  being  self-supporting  and  from 
relieving  the  pressure  on  industry  of  an  over- 
crowded labor  supply.  It  has  robbed  her  of  a 
sturdy  land-owning  peasantry  like  the  French, 
and  has  given  her  in  their  place  a  city-bred,  under- 
sized, intellectually  feeble,  morally  infirm  lower 
class. 

The  intellectuals  of  the  public  schools  and  of 
Oxford  and  Cambridge  have  supplied  a  poise 
and  dignity  to  modern  life  that  a  mediocre  democ- 
racy lacks.  Their  graduates  have  given  honest 
leadership  in  the  Government.  Recently  their 
young  men  have  gone  gallantly  to  a  service  from 
which  there  is  no  returning.  But  much  of  the 
defense  for  the  rigid,  medieval  class  system,  in  so 
far  as  it  possesses  an  intellectual  basis,  has  been 
supplied  by  public  school  and  university  men. 
They  are  living  in  the  home  of  lost  causes. 

C8 


LABOR 

The  belated  Tory  Church  of  England  clergy 
have  continued  to  be  an  ameliorating  influence  in 
their  communities.  Their  sane  manner  of  living, 
their  personal  kindliness,  their  patient  absorption 
in  the  humble  lives  about  them — all  these  make  a 
contribution  we  overlook  in  our  easy  generaliza- 
tions on  the  decayed  church.  And  there  are 
abounding  elements  inside  the  established  church 
itself  that  are  as  liberal  as  any  elements  in  modern 
life.  That  church  still  has  wise  leaders,  like  Dean 
Welldon  of  Manchester  and  a  dozen  others.  The 
sacramental  view  of  life  has  profound  and  per- 
manent values  for  certain  persons.  But  when 
all  has  been  said,  it  remains  true  that  the  church, 
with  its  compromised  theology,  its  indifference 
to  social  injustice,  its  ignorance  of  where  the 
modern  fight  for  righteousness  is  being  waged, 
its  land-holding,  its  taxation,  its  absence  of  intel- 
lectual force  in  seeking  truth,  has  acted  as  a  deter- 
rent in  the  emancipation  of  the  masses.  A  state 
religion  has  been  a  soporific,  drugging  the  laborer 
to  believe  that  his  lot  in  life  was  a  part  of  the 
scheme  of  things.  As  an  institution  the  church, 
and  as  a  body  the  clergy,  have  not  sought  equality 
for  their  communities.  The  present  National 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

Mission  of  Repentance  and  Hope,  the  most 
ambitious  crusade  the  church  has  launched  in 
many  years,  has  been  swung  over  into  an  evan- 
gelistic campaign  against  the  personal  vices  of 
drink  and  sexual  indulgence,  and  into  an  old- 
fashioned  appeal  for  personal  righteousness  and 
the  deepening  of  the  religious  life.  The  majority 
of  the  bishops  remain  blind  to  the  demand  of  the 
workers  for  an  economic  underpinning  to  their 
lives.  The  workers  believe  that  the  way  to  a 
proper  life  is  by  taking  a  hand  in  the  control  of 
industry,  by  a  living  wage,  and  by  fewer  hours  of 
work.  They  are  frankly  uninterested  in  the 
restriction  of  public  houses  and  a  more  diligent 
attendance  in  places  of  worship  till  they  see  that 
their  larder  and  their  leisure  are  guaranteed. 

These,  then,  are  the  forces  of  reaction  tighten- 
ing themselves  for  the  struggle.  These  great 
estates  of  the  landed  gentry,  the  clergy,  and  the 
public  school  and  university  men  will  die  hard  in 
defense  of  the  class  system.  They  will  be  power- 
fully supported  by  the  individualistic  capitalist, 
avid  for  his  profits,  and  by  the  timid,  unintelligent 
middle  class,  fearful  of  its  narrow  income  from 
rents,  stock-holding,  and  small  investment. 

30 


LABOR 

But  the  same  quick  action  that  turned  out  shells 
by  the  acre  will  be  enforced  by  the  return  of  a 
nation  in  arms.  It  is  not  that  they  will  use  the 
rifle  to  shoot.  It  is  that  their  strength  has  been 
compacted  where  their  eye  can  see  it,  their  organi- 
zation ready-made  for  them,  their  service  to  the 
nation  acknowledged.  Soldiers  and  workers  are 
the  same  men,  inside  the  small  area  of  an  island. 
At  one  stroke  war  won  those  things  for  which  in 
peace  a  portion  of  the  English  people  seek  in 
vain:  proper  food,  correct  conditions  for  effi- 
ciency, a  pension  for  dependents,  high  honor  for 
service,  a  common  sacrifice,  and,  embracing  all 
like  a  climate,  a  favoring  public  opinion,  a  great 
universal  equality.  They  will  demand  that  the 
same  humanity  be  let  loose  into  their  daily  life 
of  the  factories.  Is  the  basic  work  of  peace  less 
worthy  than  trench  routine? 

There  has  been  a  certain  vital  force  in  new 
countries  that  England  has  lacked  in  recent  years. 
Some  of  that  living  element  went  out  to  America 
and  the  colonies.  It  founded  free  institutions, 
established  a  wider  equality,  liberated  a  play  for 
individual  initiative.  It  left  England  grayer 
and  heavier  than  in  its  great  epochs.  Next  to  the 

31 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

sleeping  strength  of  the  Russian  peasantry,  the 
English  mass  is  the  slowest-moving  force  in  the 
modern  European  world. 

Observers  of  England  have  written  down  this 
slackening  of  effort  as  laziness.  But  "laziness" 
and  "drink"  and  "thriftlessness"  are  the  inva- 
riable resort  of  an  imperfect  analysis.  What 
was  the  cause  of  that  laziness  ?  I  believe  that  we 
have  the  answer  in  the  weakness  that  sets  in  when 
an  organism  gets  out  of  touch  with  its  environ- 
ment. All  the  conditions  of  modern  life  were 
changing  rapidly,  and  England  revealed  little 
adaptability  in  fitting  herself  to  the  change. 
What  the  war  has  made  clear  is  that  England 
was  losing  her  stride  in  the  modern  world.  She 
was  lagging  in  agriculture,  industry,  and  applied 
science.  To  put  the  matter  clearly  and  frankly, 
an  anemia  had  spread  over  English  life  in  recent 
generations.  Through  lack  of  vocational  train- 
ing, the  working-man  had  lost  ambition,  and  his 
power  of  production  had  lost  pace  with  German 
and  American  workers.  The  huddled,  sheltered, 
unproductive  lives  of  middle-class  people  were 
often  without  direction  and  purpose  because  they 
were  untrained.  The  upper  class  had  lost  power 

32 


LABOR 

of  constructive  leadership  in  the  traditions  of  an 
education  unrelated  to  the  realities  of  modern 
life. 

This  war  has  wakened  England.  It  has  made 
the  working-man  work  at  full-tilt  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life.  He  has  been  willing  to  do  it, 
because  the  product  served  a  national  purpose 
instead  of  the  profit  of  another  person.  He  has 
been  physically  able  to  do  it,  because  an  increased 
wage  gave  him  better  food.  He  has  discovered 
how  to  do  it,  because  the  pressure  of  necessity  has 
unlocked  brain  cells  which  in  ordinary  times 
would  have  required  a  term  of  education  to 
coordinate.  The  war  has  turned  the  middle-class 
home  inside  out,  and  freed  the  respectable  unem- 
ployed into  usefulness.  It  has  given  new  and 
more  active  forms  of  employment  to  women 
caught  in  domestic  service  and  the  parasitic  trades 
of  "refined"  dressmaking,  millinery,  and  candy 
manufacture.  Finally,  the  war  has  given  a 
career  to  upper-class  Englishmen.  For  the  first 
time  in  their  lives  they  feel  they  have  found  some- 
thing active  to  do  through  noble  sacrifice.  The 
sigh  of  relief  that  went  up  at  the  discovery  that 
life  was  at  last  worth  living,  if  only  because  of  its 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

brevity,  was  echoed  in  the  poetry  of  officers  as  it 
drifted  back  from  the  trenches. 

The  key  to  the  present  situation  is  the  sudden 
enormous  release  of  energy.  Male  labor  has  felt 
it,  and  has  responded  with  increased  production. 
Women  have  felt  it,  and  have  transferred  their 
activities  from  low-pressure  drudgery  and  par- 
asitic, employments  to  the  main  channels  of 
industry.  The  directors  and  capitalists  have  felt 
it,  and  have  sanctioned  new  areas  of  production, 
new  automatic  machinery,  and  more  liberal  terms 
for  their  workers.  The  state  has  felt  it,  and  has 
taken  a  direct  hand  in  the  encouragement  and 
control  of  industry.  An  incredible  amount  of 
energy  has  been  let  loose  in  England  which  before 
was  lying  latent  in  underpaid,  undernourished 
working-men,  in  individualistic  businessmen,  in 
unimaginative  government  officials,  in  extra 
daughters  in  the  household,  and  in  unattached 
women  of  a  moderate  income  and  no  profession. 

A  spiritual  transformation  would  come  to  pass 
if  atoms  were  dissociated  and  the  latent  energy  in 
matter  released  into  a  torpid  world.  What  coal 
and  electricity  and  radium  accomplish  in  burning 
through  obstruction  and  speeding  up  life  would 

34 


LABOR 

be  transcended  by  that  new  amazing  release  of 
force.  But  that  very  thing  took  place  in  the 
social  organism.  Industrial  labor  and  the  home 
were  each  an  "indestructible  atom,"  the  final  unit 
that  could  not  be  pried  open,  or  separated  into 
parts.  And  suddenly  it  was  broken  up,  and  an 
immense  energy  set  going  in  the  community. 

To  maintain  this  increased  activity  after  the 
war  will  require  an  enlarged  system  of  state  edu- 
cation. Vocational  training  must  be  given  to 
the  young  in  place  of  the  present  laissez-faire 
policy,  which  lets  children  slip  out  from  control, 
at  the  age  of  fourteen  and  even  younger,  into 
"blind-alley"  pursuits.  England  will  have  to  be 
remodeled  or  else  lose  her  place  among  the 
nations. 

If  she  fails  to  take  action  in  accelerating  indus- 
trial democracy,  she  will  see  her  surviving  young 
men  sailing  in  droves  for  Canada  and  Australia. 
The  colonies  are  far-sighted,  and  their  prop- 
aganda in  England  is  continuous,  and  has  greatly 
increased  since  the  beginning  of  the  war.  Show- 
windows  on  the  Strand  and  King's  Road,  and  like 
strategic  points  of  great  cities,  are  filled  with  the 
genial  products  of  the  soil  and  the  mines, — ears 

35 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

of  grain  and  slags  of  metal, — and  the  background 
a  gay  painting  of  an  overseas  city,  with  its  hos- 
pitable harbor.  Pleasant-voiced  and  energetic 
gentlemen  inside  the  roomy,  prosperous  offices 
tell  you  what  you  can  make  of  your  life  if  you  pull 
up  stakes  and  come  with  them  to  the  new  lands. 
If  England  fails,  she  will  be  stripped  of  men,  and 
will  become  a  feminist  nation.  But  she  will  not 
fail.  The  penalty  is  too  severe. 

It  would  be  easy  to  play  the  role  of  a  prophet 
here,  and  ride  a  radical  gallop  through  the  coming 
England.  But  I  have  consistently  limited  this 
outline  to  the  tendencies  already  under  way,  to 
the  currents  already  running.  I  have  struck  out 
the  minimum  of  social  remodeling,  as  recognized 
by  middle-of-the-way  publicists.  I  can  quote 
"The  Saturday  Review"  on  a  minimum  wage  for 
agricultural  labor,  "The  Times"  on  the  idea  of 
national  syndication,  the  Government  on  the 
"pigsty"  in  which  the  farm-laborer  has  been 
forced  to  live,  and  Mr.  Asquith  on  woman's  claim 
to  a  vote  on  the  basis  of  her  war  work. 

To  suppose  that  these  changes  are  going 
through  gracefully  is  to  dream  in  the  daylight. 
They  are  coming  jerkily,  unevenly.  Nothing 

86 


LABOR 

will  be  granted  except  as  it  is  forced.  I  have 
heard  talk  by  persons  in  well-to-do  homes  about 
the  new  brotherhood  of  the  trenches.  One  of  the 
most  distinguished  English  writers  said  to  me : 

"Do  you  think  working-men  will  ever  feel 
bitterly  again,  now  that  they  have  seen  their 
officers  leading  them  and  dying  for  them?" 

It  did  not  occur  to  her  to  inquire  how  gallantry 
in  an  infantry  charge  would  prove  a  substitute 
for  a  living  wage.  There  will  be  brotherhood 
after  the  war  if  the  privileged  classes  pay  a  living 
wage;  but  from  what  some  of  their  represent- 
atives have  said  to  me  I  gather  that  brotherhood  is 
to  be  practised  by  the  workers  in  ceasing  to 
agitate  for  the  basic  conditions  of  a  decent  life. 

Not  much  of  this  emancipation  is  being  made 
in  love.  It  has  largely  come  by  the  clever  use  of 
force,  and  what  it  brings  will  be  like  the  gains  of 
war  for  territory — areas  soaked  with  human 
tears,  breeding-places  of  fresh  dissension.  The 
eternal  questions  will  beat  in  again  after  the  new 
order  is  established.  Is  a  living  wage  the  final 
answer  to  the  homesickness  of  the  human  spirit? 
Does  a  materialistic  conception  of  life  satisfy  the 
longing  of  the  heart?  Are  the  claims  of  beauty 

87 

428828 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

met  by  uniform  rows  of  neat  little  dwellings  and 
by  sanitary  factories?  Have  we  really  crossed 
the  great  divide  and  arrived  finally  in  the  sun- 
shine? One  doubts  it.  The  life  of  the  spirit  is 
not  so  easily  satisfied.  But  as  in  the  present  war 
of  arms  political  differences  are  buried,  art  and 
poetry  forgotten,  and  all  the  national  will  focused 
on  this  one  thing  to  do,  so  in  this  greater  struggle 
the  vast  complexities  of  life  are  overlooked  for 
the  sake  of  a  working  program  of  action  and 
a  sharp  summary.  Happiness  and  morality, 
beauty  and  religion,  are  left  to  take  care  of  them- 
selves. 

It  is  not  from  brotherly  love  that  an  increased 
cooperation  between  the  directors  and  the  workers 
is  being  established,  but  because  without  cooper- 
ation the  production  of  wealth  is  lessened,  capital 
is  diminished,  and  wages  are  decreased.  That 
cooperation  is  not  secured  by  telling  the  laborer 
to  "be  good,"  to  remember  the  nation,  and  to  for- 
get his  wage.  The  capitalist  of  the  past  has  been 
indifferent  to  the  welfare  of  his  workers.  He 
has  had  his  mind  on  individual  profit,  not  on 
national  wealth.  If  he  acts  in  the  future  as  he 
has  in  the  past,  extracting  an  immediate  high 

38 


LABOR 

profit  at  the  expense  of  the  worker,  and  therefore 
of  the  national  wealth,  the  control  will  be  taken 
from  him,  and  will  pass  over  automatically  into 
the  hands  of  the  democracy.  It  rests  with  the 
capitalists  themselves  whether  they  and  their  sys- 
tem will  survive  or  whether  their  function  will  be 
taken  over  by  the  industrial  group  and  the  state. 
Capital  and  labor  are  a  permanent  institution; 
but  the  capitalist,  unlike  the  laborer,  is  by  no 
means  an  indispensable  unit  in  the  institution. 
If  the  capitalist  will  handle  himself  in  relation  to 
his  employees  as  the  French  officer  does  in  rela- 
tion to  his  men,  he  can  postpone  his  extinction 
indefinitely.  If  he  develops  a  democracy  of  spirit 
and  attitude,  taking  less  profits  and  paying 
higher  wages,  exercising  leadership  by  intelli- 
gence and  sympathy,  and  permitting  labor  a  voice 
in  working  conditions,  he  will  remain  in  partial 
control  of  a  diminished  realm  for  the  immediate 
future  at  least.  As  fast  as  he  fails  he  will  be 
ousted. 

Discipline  and  responsibility  are  the  essentials 
for  the  new  life  just  beginning,  and  they  rest  with 
equal  weight  on  employer  and  employee.  They 
are  two  words  which  had  become  unpopular  in 

39 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

our  recent  philosophy  of  life,  because  the  qual- 
ities themselves  were  out  of  favor.  But  the  war 
has  revealed  their  ancient  worth  under  the  cake  of 
modernism. 

The  faults  of  the  English,  as  I  see  them,  are  an 
almost  incorrigible  mental  torpidness,  which  is 
slow  to  see  a  new  situation  and  obstinate  to  move 
even  when  seeing  it;  a  deep-rooted  belief  in  the 
class  system;  an  unconscious  arrogance;  and  a 
suppression  of  the  emotional  life.  As  the  result 
of  these  limitations  in  insight  and  sympathy,  the 
English  race  has  been  backward  in  the  betterment 
of  its  own  people.  It  has  overworked  and  under- 
paid its  own  sons  and  daughters  till  a  portion  of 
its  population  rots  in  foul  slums. 

A  silent,  slow-moving,  but  determined  will,  a 
constancy  of  purpose,  a  standard  of  conduct, 
often  fallen  short  of,  but  rather  consistently 
aimed  at,  are,  I  think,  the  saving  characteristics 
of  English  character.  By  reason  of  these  virtues, 
— and  they  are  supreme  virtues, — when  the  Eng- 
lish race  starts  to  right  a  wrong,  it  goes  through 
with  the  work  to  the  end.  It  has  now  set  itself 
to  give  justice  to  its  workers.  The  social  move- 

40 


LABOR 

ment  is  more  surely  on  its  way  in  England  than 
in  any  other  country  of  Europe. 

Human  history  has  moved  in  cycles,  and  war 
has  often  marked  the  cesura.  The  French 
Revolution,  the  Napoleonic  wars,  and  the  inven- 
tion of  machinery  altered  the  face  of  the  world 
and  refashioned  its  inner  life.  We  are  to-day 

* 

in  the  presence  of  an  industrial  revolution  as  vast 
as  that  of  a  century  ago.  We  in  America  shall  be 
wise  if  we,  like  England,  practise  preparedness 
not  only  in  the  obvious  surface  requirements  of 
dreadnoughts  and  citizen  armies,  but  in  the  pro- 
found modifications  of  the  social  structure  and 
consciousness. 

THE  DISCOVERY 

X 

Any  one  who  looks  forward  to  a  peace  on  earth 
following  the  war  of  the  trenches  is  going  to  be 
present  at  a  surprise-party.  The  workers  are 
gathering  themselves  for  a  mighty  effort  which 
will  make  the  French  railway  strike  and  the  Eng- 
lish mine  and  transport  strikes  look  like  an  after- 
noon tea.  The  issue  will  be  precipitated  when 
the  Government  and  the  employers  fail  to  restore 

41 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

the  old  trade-union  rules  and  regulations.  They 
cannot  restore  them  because  the  conditions  have 
changed  in  the  last  two  years.  New  automatic 
machinery  and  the  entrance  of  male  and  female 
semi-skilled  workers  have  made  it  impossible  to 
restore  the  old  system,  which  was  adapted  to  the 
old  conditions.  Let  me  quote  from  a  careful 
investigation  made  by  experts: 

Many  of  the  men  who  return  from  the  trenches  to 
the  great  munition  and  shipbuilding  centers  are,  within 
a  few  weeks  of  their  return,  among  those  who  exhibit 
most  actively  their  discontent  with  present  conditions. 
Among  those  who  have  fought  in  Flanders  or  who 
have  been  employed  in  making  shells  at  home,  there  are 
many  who  look  forward  to  a  great  social  upheaval 
following  the  war.  It  is  the  testimony  of  responsible 
observers  on  the  spot  that  some  of  our  greatest  in- 
dustrial centers  are  even  now  in  a  state  of  incipient 
revolt.  To  a  very  large  number  of  the  men  now  in 
the  ranks,  the  fight  against  Germany  is  a  fight  against 
"Prussianism,"  and  the  spirit  of  Prussianism  represents 
to  them  only  an  extreme  example  of  that  to  which 
they  object  in  the  industrial  and  social  institutions  of 
their  own  country.  They  regard  the  present  struggle 
as  closely  connected  with  the  campaign  against  capital- 
ist and  class-domination  at  home. 

Unfortunately  some  of  the  results  of  the  war  itself, 

42 


LABOR 

such  as  the  Munitions  Acts  and  the  Compulsion  Acts, 
have  intensified  this  identification  of  external  and  in- 
ternal "enemies."  We  are  not  discussing  the  necessity 
of  these  measures.  The  point  is  that  the  working  of 
these  acts  and  the  tribunals  created  under  them  has 
given  rise  to  an  amount  of  deep  and  widespread  re- 
sentment which  is  the  more  dangerous  because  it  is 
largely  inarticulate.  It  is  particularly  dangerous  be- 
cause it  tends  to  discredit  in  general  working  class 
opinion  that  section  of  labor  which  looks  to  the  im- 
provement of  industrial  conditions  by  negotiation  or  by 
legislative  action,  and  to  strengthen  the  hands  of  the 
party  which  preaches  doctrines  of  wrecking  and  ap- 
propriation. 

The  war  has  not  put  an  end  to  industrial  unrest. 
Every  one  of  the  old  causes  of  dispute  remains,  and 
others  of  a  more  serious  nature  have  been  added  in 
the  course  of  the  war.  The  very  moderation  and  un- 
selfishness shown  by  the  responsible  leaders  of  organ- 
ized labor  are  looked  upon  by  important  sections  of 
their  following  as  a  betrayal  of  the  cause  and  by  some 
employers  as  a  tactical  opportunity. 

What  is  the  answer?  No  half-way  solution, 
no  artificial  "faked"  restoration,  no  "brotherhood 
of  the  trenches,"  no  turning  of  the  attention  of 
labor  to  "higher  things"  by  a  national  mission, 
will  suffice  to  meet  the  imperious  demands  of  five 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

million  men  who  have  felt  the  rhythm  and 
momentum  of  victorious  organization.  There  is 
only  one  answer  which  will  avail.  That  answer 
is  democratic  control.  It  can  come  in  either  of 
two  ways.  It  can  come  by  the  graceful  conces- 
sion of  the  employing  class.  If  it  does  not  come 
in  that  way,  it  will  come  by  the  overwhelming 
force  exerted  by  general  limitation  of  output  and 
by  wide-spread  strikes.  And  if  these  prove  slow, 
then  there  is  the  possibility  of  what  a  Scotch 
employer  recently  declared.  He  said,  "As  I  look 
into  the  future,  I  see  nothing  but  bloodshed." 

There  is  no  need  of  bloodshed,  which  is  a  crude 
and  unsatisfactory  way  of  determining  questions 
as  complex  as  the  division  of  profits,  the  limits  of 
fatigue,  the  conditions  of  production. 

Let  us  consider  the  principle  of  democratic 
control  in  detail.  It  is  sensible,  and  industrial 
warfare  is  senseless,  as  senseless  as  international 
warfare.  What  is  it  exactly  that  the  worker 
wishes?  Shorter  hours  and  higher  wages?  Yes. 
Better  conditions  of  working  and  living?  Yes. 
But  all  these  are  servants  of  a  better  thing  yet — 
status.  Status  is  standing.  It  is  that  position 
which  a  person  or  a  class  holds  in  society.  The 

44 


LABOR 

desire  for  status  is  the  desire  for  a  good  life — a 
life  raised  above  slavery  and  injustice,  and  free 
to  develop  its  creative  impulses.  No  one  of  intel- 
ligence wishes  labor  to  thrust  in  and  muddle 
matters  which  it  has  n't  the  executive  equipment 
for  handling.  At  its  present  stage  of  devel- 
opment labor  cannot  organize  the  market  and  sell 
the  product.  It  cannot  equip  the  factory  and 
conduct  the  operating  and  selling  conditions. 
Management  in  that  sense  is  beyond  its  powers. 
Education,  discipline,  experience,  the  creation  of 
a  specialized  kind  of  brain  power — all  are  neces- 
sary to  organize  industry  and  conduct  its  multiple 
processes. 

But  what  labor  can  manage  and  possesses  the 
right  to  manage,  but  has  not  received  the  permis- 
sion to  manage,  are  the  conditions  of  its  own  life 
— its  working  life  and  its  leisure  life.  The  instal- 
lation of  new  processes,  the  introduction  of  new 
machinery,  the  injection  of  new  workers — all 
these  alterations  of  working  conditions  have  been 
imposed  upon  the  workers,  as  one  puts  a  new 
harness  on  a  horse,  or  shifts  him  from  the  plow 
to  the  tread-mill.  The  workers  have  built  up 
their  own  system  of  protective  devices  to  meet 

45 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

these  impositions  of  the  oligarchy  in  control  of 
them.  They  have  limited  the  output  by  * 'going 
gently"  with  the  work.  They  have  limited  the 
number  of  apprentices.  They  have  practised 
sabotage  and  called  strikes.  They  had  no  other 
weapons.  The  result  of  these  protective  devices 
has  been  to  lessen  the  volume  of  production,  to 
give  capital  a  smaller  return  on  its  investment, 
and  to  cut  down  wages.  The  policy  has  been 
bad  for  employer  and  employee. 

It  is  not  altogether  the  control  which  capital 
and  management  exercise  over  the  mechanism  of 
production  which  creates  industrial  unrest.  It 
is  in  part  the  control  over  labor.  Absence  of 
knowledge  is  the  cause  of  some  of  the  misunder- 
standing. The  workers  understand  nothing  of 
overhead  charges,  depreciation  of  plant,  the  risks 
of  capital.  They  know  nothing  of  the  policy 
connected  with  buying  and  selling.  The  em- 
ployers know  nothing  of  the  effect  of  a  new 
process  on  the  nervous  system  of  the  worker. 
They  know  nothing  of  the  fatigue  from  overwork 
or  monotony.  They  make  no  study  of  a  standard 
of  living.  They  go  blindly  ahead,  as  if  men  and 
machinery  alike  were  tools  to  be  manipulated. 

46 


LABOR 

That  an  aim  of  industry  should  be  a  good  life  for 
the  worker  is  an  idea  which  would  sound  strangely 
in  their  ears. 

What  is  needed  between  employer  and  worker 
is  a  pooling  of  knowledge,  a  frank  exchange  of 
the  point  of  view,  and  a  compromise  in  manage- 
ment. The  way  out  is  through  democratic  con- 
trol over  the  conditions  of  work.  The  worker 
must  be  consulted  when  new  machinery  is 
installed.  The  effect  of  it  must  be  studied  in 
relation  to  monotony,  fatigue,  and  danger.  The 
profits  from  its  introduction  must  be  equitably 
divided  between  the  employer  and  the  worker. 
The  consultation  must  not  be  a  form  of  words. 
It  must  be  a  consultation  where  the  voice  of  the 
worker  is  of  equal  authority  with  that  of  the  exec- 
utive management.  The  worker  must  be  in  a 
position  to  control  the  conditions  of  his  putting 
forth  of  labor  power.  The  new  conditions, 
created  by  the  new  machine  with  its  special  proc- 
esses, must  be  such  that  the  balance  of  justice, 
established  under  the  old  conditions,  is  not  dis- 
turbed by  the  alteration.  The  belief  that  every 
change,  such  as  "scientific  management,"  in- 
stituted by  the  employer,  has  enabled  him  to  pick 

47 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

up  slack  and  take  a  tighter  cinch-grip  on  labor, 
has  led  labor  to  resist  labor-saving  devices  and 
modern  methods  of  speeding-up.  The  employer 
has  been  partly  defeated  whenever  he  has  played 
a  "lone  hand."  And  labor,  in  defeating  him,  has 
lessened  the  volume  of  production  froni  which 
higher  wages  are  derived.1 

i  Consider  the  analysis  Sir  Hugh  Bell  has  recently  made  of  his 
own  costs,  as  given  in  "The  Round  Table"  for  September,  1916. 

"His  firm  makes  steel,  the  raw  materials  for  which  are  produced 
from  his  own  coal  and  iron  mines  and  limestone  quarries.  In  every 
ton  of  eteel  made,  70  to  75  per  cent,  of  the  cost  goes  as  the  wages 
of  labor.  There  remains  25  to  30  per  cent,  for  all  other  outgoings, 
including  profit.  The  turnover  on  a  steel  business  in  this  country 
about  equals  the  capital  invested.  If  his  profit  amounts  to  10  per 
cent.,  of  which  3  per  cent,  at  least  must  go  back  into  the  business 
to  maintain  the  works,  he  thinks  himself  lucky,  and  the  7  per  cent, 
left  must  cover  interest  on  his  capital  as  well  as  the  profits  for  his 
enterprise  and  risk.  The  remaining  15  to  20  per  cent,  goes  to 
cover  rates  and  taxes,  railway  freights  and  so  forth,  part  of  which 
again  goes  to  labor. 

"Out  of  what  fund,"  as  Sir  Hugh  Bell  asks,  "is  he  to  pay  a  10 
per  cent,  increase  in  wages?"  If  he  paid  10  per  cent,  more,  he 
would  have  no  profit  at  all  and  could  not  continue  the  business. 
The  increase  in  wages,  then,  can  only  come  from  within,  by  greater 
efficiency  in  management  or  greater  production  per  man.  There 
are,  no  doubt,  many  businesses  which  have  some  monopoly  value, 
where  capital  secures  a  greater  return;  there  are  others  where  the 
return  is  less  and  the  business  is  decaying.  But  except  when  ab- 
normal conditions  arise,  as  with  shipping  now,  or  when  a  monopoly 
or  a  patent  exists,  the  picture  given  by  Sir  Hugh  Bell  is  more  or 
less  applicable  to  industry  in  general. 

No  paper  resolution,  no  legislation,  and  no  economic  theory  can 
alter  the  facts  of  the  industrial  situation,  but  an  adjustment  and  a 
gain  can  be  made  by  a  new  release  of  productive  energy  on  the 

48 


LABOR 

What  is  the  way  out?  Surely  it  is  this:  in- 
stall the  new  machinery,  establish  scientific  man- 
agement, but  explain  the  process,  adjust  the 
wage-scale,  debate  the  problems  of  fatigue, 
monotony,  and  danger,  safeguard  the  standard 
of  living,  study  the  new  conditions,  and  work  out 
an  agreement  between  employer  and  workers. 

Already  there  is  a  rapprochement  between  the 
larger  groups.  In  the  crisis  of  1915,  Mr.  Ten- 
nant  summoned  the  labor  leaders  to  organize  the 
forces  of  labor.  The  employers  and  the  Govern- 
ment were  helpless  unless  aided  by  the  workers 
themselves.  On  that  day,  February  8,  1915,  the 
principle  of  democratic  control  in  industry  was 
established  in  the  modern  state,  never  to  be 
receded  from.  This  system  of  joint  committees 
had  indeed  long  existed  in  the  leading  trades, 
where  employers  and  union  leaders  met  to  settle 
disputes.  But  the  white  flag  of  truce  was  over 
the  conference,  while,  outside,  the  battle  raged. 
But  Mr.  Tennant  by  his  bold  measure  raised  the 
joint  committee  to  the  level  of  continuous  medi- 
ation and  consultation.  These  joint  boards  will 

part  of  the  management  and  the  men,  by  consultation  between 
labor  and  capital,  and  by  hard  intellectual  effort  put  on  each  detail 
of  both  the  industrial  process  and  the  industrial  relationship. 

49 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

be  the  method  by  which  the  Government,  the 
employer,  and  the  worker  will  discuss  the  break- 
down during  war-time  of  the  trade-union  rules, 
and  the  substitute  to  be  given  in  place  of  an 
impossible  restoration.  The  joint  board  is  part 
of  the  machinery  for  reconstruction.  The  accept- 
ance of  it  is  an  acceptance  of  the  principle  of 
democratic  control. 

That  is  the  centralized  and  "parliamentary" 
side  of  the  matter.  But  it  deals  with  only  half 
the  problem.  The  other  half  is  local  government 
in  the  individual  factory.  No  system  of  cen- 
tralization can  ever  so  extend  itself  as  to  deal 
adequately  with  the  delicate  various  human  mate- 
rial in  the  single  factory.  And  for  this  a  solution 
has  been  struck  out.  It  is  that  of  workshop 
councils,  where  the  men  sit  in  equal  power  with 
the  management.  It  has  been  tried  in  a  few 
places.  It  has  worked  excellently.  There  is  one 
factory  where  no  decision  in  several  years  has 
been  appealed  from.  Disputes  have  died  away. 
We  shall  hear  much  of  "workshop  councils"  in 
the  next  five  years.  The  experiment  offers  the 
one  sane,  peaceable  way  out  of  a  struggle  that, 
"unnegotiated,"  will  throw  industry  into  chaos. 

50 


LABOR 

Let  us  consider  in  detail  what  the  workshop 
council  will  do.  It  will  deal  with  the  admission 
of  unskilled  workers  into  the  factory,  with  piece- 
work prices,  shop  discipline,  suspension  and  dis- 
missal, welfare,  organization,  and  production, 
"time"  rules,  consideration  of  complaints,  meth- 
ods of  increasing  efficiency,  discussion  of  hours  of 
work,  and  the  necessity  of  periods  of  overtime, 
supervision  of  eating-halls,  organization  of  rec- 
reation. The  council  will  represent  a  depart- 
ment, and  will  send  one  representative  for  every 
fifty  workers,  for  instance.  Thus  a  department 
with  250  workmen  will  send  five  representatives. 
Sitting  with  the  council  in  equal  numbers  will  be 
the  manager  of  the  department  and  his  assistants. 
For  a  large  factory  the  departmental  councils 
will  meet  and  elect  a  "works  council" — twenty- 
five  workers  and  twenty-five  managers  and  assist- 
ants,— who  will  consider  matters  touching  the 
works  as  a  whole.  On  questions  such  as  fixing 
day  wages  and  the  level  that  governs  piece  wages, 
the  employer  will  continue  to  deal  direct  with  the 
trade-unions,  but  the  piece  rates  themselves  will 
be  arranged  by  the  workshop  councils. 

.This  is  all  experimental  and  tentative.  It  may 
51 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

break  down  under  bitterness  or  trickery.  It  may 
be  manipulated  by  clever  men.  Chesterton,  who 
is  a  hearty  medievalist,  desiring  general  peasant 
proprietorship,  calls  the  scheme  of  "a  certain 
proletarian  representation  in  the  employer's 
council"  "the  man-trap  of  the  management." 
He  says  that  "the  first  few  labor  representatives 
filtered  cautiously  into  the  'management'  will  be 
beaten  at  the  game.  That  is  why  they  will  be 
allowed  to  play  at  it." 

Perhaps,  but  the  idea  is  in  line  with  democratic 
principle.  It  is  being  worked  at  by  the  best 
minds  in  England,  and  it  offers  the  one  peaceable 
way  out  of  a  strife  that  grows  more  intense  every 
month. 

The  situation  is  this:  labor  is  going  to 
demand  higher  wages.  To  obtain  them,  labor 
must  produce  more  goods,  and  the  employer  must 
improve  his  methods,  install  new  machinery,  and 
consult  the  worker.  Some  employers  will  meet 
the  situation  with  superlatively  good  management 
— a  management  that  will  welcome  the  worker 
to  a  share  in  control,  and  will  increase  production 
and  wages  without  financial  loss.  Some  em- 
ployers will  make  decreased  profits,  some  will  go 

52 


LABOR 

to  the  wall,  and  some  will  fight  the  new  condi- 
tions. If  wisdom  prevails  on  both  sides,  a  new 
constitution  of  industry  will  be  achieved. 

DEMOCRATIC    CONTROL 

In  this  age,  when  psychology  is  taking  over 
new  realms  of  fact  every  year,  it  is  increasingly 
difficult  to  use  a  phrase  about  society  which  is 
accurate  in  describing  the  instinctive  life  of  forty- 
five  million  persons.  Yet  one  must  have  a  vocab- 
ulary in  order  to  talk.  The  phrase  "democratic 
control"  appears  throughout  this  book.  By  the 
principle  of  democratic  control  I  mean  the  appli- 
cation to  the  institutions  of  property  and  the 
state  of  the  sum  of  the  desires  and  impulses  of  the 
persons  composing  the  modern  nation-state. 
Those  desires  and  impulses  are  often  thought 
about  and  definitely  expressed  in  a  reasoned  pro- 
gram of  action,  as  in  the  gradually  developing 
"will  to  war"  of  the  British  people.  Often  they 
are  held  only  in  the  subconscious  mind,  exploding 
through  from  time  to  time  in  blind  action.  But 
the  desires  and  impulses  of  the  mass  people  have 
to-day  a  power  in  shaping  legislation,  controlling 
administration,  adapting  environment,  and  estab- 

68 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

lishing  new  social  relationships,  which,  through 
lack  of  organization,  they  did  not  possess  in 
earlier  periods.  Suppression,  thwarting,  sub- 
mission are  not  acceptable  to  the  people  of  a 
modern  nation,  and  they  have  determined  to  live 
a  more  creative  life. 

"Democratic  control"  is  a  convenient  phrase 
for  describing  what  is  taking  place  in  society, 
which  we  express  concretely  by  using  the  terms 

"labor  movement,"  "woman  movement,"  "wel- 

* 

fare  work,"  "British  commonwealth,"  "rights  of 
little  nations."  An  increasing  number  of  people 
are  seeing  what  they  want  and  are  getting  it. 
An  increasing  number  of  women  are  desiring  a 
living  wage  and  the  vote,  and  they  are  organizing 
their  thought  and  will  to  obtain  them.  An 
increasing  number  of  manual  workers  are  wishing 
to  control  the  conditions  of  their  working  life,  and 
they  are  acting  together  in  order  to  win  that 
status.  The  dominions  are  growing  restive  under 
an  imperial  policy  conducted  by  England  alone, 
and  they  are  preparing  to  take  a  hand  in  the 
shaping  of  that  policy.  These  are  instances  of 
democratic  control — the  application  to  govern- 

54 


LABOR 

ment  and  contract  of  the  sum  of  the  desires  and 
impulses  of  millions  of  persons. 

Our  modern  social  movement,  which  is  seeking 
to  achieve  the  organized  state  under  democratic 
control,  operates  through  private  ownership  and 
individualism  (property),  cooperation,  state  con- 
trol (socialism),  and  occupational  association 
(syndicalism).  The  socialistic  state  has  greatly 
extended  its  function  in  the  present  war.  Non- 
local association,  or  syndicalism,  is  increasing  its 
strength  through  workshop  councils,  joint  boards, 
and  the  various  organizations  of  common  occupa- 
tion, trade-unions,  "industrial  workers,"  gilds. 
Cooperation  for  production  is  powerful  in  Ire- 
land, and  cooperation  for  distribution  has  had  a 
long  and  successful  history  in  England.  Prop- 
erty— the  idea  of  the  "small  owner,"  the  "peasant 
proprietor,"  one's  right  to  one's  "very  own,"  is 
still  intrenched.  Any  dogmatism  on  the  claims 
of  one  of  these  against  the  others  must  to-day  be 
rejected  as  not  fitting  the  facts.  Any  prophecy 
as  to  which  will  contribute  most  decisively  to 
the  future  organization  of  society  is  gratuitous. 
Each  overlaps  upon  the  others,  but  all  are 

55 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

expressions  of  the  impulse  toward  freedom,  and 
the  social  movement  is  the  resultant. 

Particular  tendencies  in  the  social  movement 
cannot  be  exclusively  identified  with  particular 
psychological  dispositions.  Dr.  Graham  Wallas 
writes  to  me: 

The  extension  of  democratic  control  is  of  course 
dependent  on  knowledge,  or  imagination,  as  well  as  im- 
pulse. More  exactly,  impulse  in  the  modern  world  has 
to  be  stimulated  rather  by  our  ideas  of  what  we  can- 
not see  or  hear  than  by  our  direct  sensations.  The 
Railway  Men's  Union  is  growing  stronger  because  in- 
dividual railwaymen  are  getting  a  more  definite  con- 
ception of  the  capital-  and  state-machine  instead  of  a 
vague  acquiescence  in  a  social  order  felt  to  be  irresisti- 
ble (or,  rather,  not  felt  to  be  resistible)  ;  because  they 
have  a  conception  of  improving  their  position  neither 
by  individual  industry  nor  by  state  action,  but  by  syn- 
dical  action;  because  they  have  learnt  by  experience 
that  improvement  can  be  brought  about  by  syndical 
action. 

There  is  not  half  enough  concentrated  thinking 
being  done.  The  Labor  party  in  its  latest  con- 
ference displayed  as  much  hot  feeling  over  in- 
finitesimal details  as  the  protagonists  in  an  Irish 
election,  and  it  dissolved  without  any  large 

56 


LABOR 

program.  The  speaker's  Conference  on  Elec- 
toral Reform  "approved"  of  the  principle  of 
woman  suffrage,  but  failed  to  include  a  measure 
to  obtain  it  in  the  resolutions.  No  synthetic  plan 
of  reconstruction  is  anywhere  in  sight.  What 
will  happen  is  that  the  pressure  of  necessity  will 
force  reforms,  bill  by  bill,  detail  by  detail.  This 
is  a  costly  way.  It  is  the  way  in  which  shells  were 
substituted  for  shrapnel.  It  means  that  each 
group  in  the  community  will  fight  like  a  lone  wolf 
for  its  bone.  It  is  possible  that  the  engineering 
trades,  for  instance,  which  will  come  out  on  top 
during  the  first  years  of  peace,  will  leave  women 
and  unskilled  men  to  fight  their  own  battles,  fail- 
ing to  see  that  a  standard  of  living  and  high 
production  are  principles  established  only  by 
combined  effort. 

Each  class  division  in  the  community  is  sulking 
in  its  corner  and  hugging  half  a  dozen  pet 
fallacies.  The  employer  still  believes  that  the 
aim  of  industry  is  a  product  rather  than  human 
welfare.  He  still  believes  in  laissez-faire,  "im- 
mutable laws  of  supply  and  demand,"  a  servile 
wage  class.  The  worker  still  regards  "economic 
determinism"  as  governing  the  multitudinous 

57 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

currents  of  human  history.  He  still  believes  that 
there  is  only  a  certain  fixed  amount  of  work  and 
money  to  be  ladled  out,  a  pool  unfed  by  expand- 
ing production.  He  still  believes  in  limiting  the 
number  of  workers  and  circumscribing  the  areas 
and  methods  of  production.  He  still  distrusts 
the  intellect  as  an  instrument  for  establishing 
justice. 

But  the  principle  of  democratic  control  forces 
its  own  way  irresistibly  through  the  storm  of 
words  and  conflicting  purposes.  If  only  one  man 
in  England  apprehended  it,  it  would  have  to 
prevail,  for  it  leads  out  of  chaos.  It  abolishes 
ignorance  and  poverty.  It  releases  the  good-will 
which  lies  hidden  and  obstructed  in  our  nature. 
It  promises  equality,  and  perhaps  some  day  will 
bring  in  beauty  to  a  troubled  and  unlovely  world. 

THE   PIONEERS 

England  is  becoming  an  industrial  democracy, 
but  the  talk  is  all  of  speeding  up  production  and 
making  a  better  machine  of  the  worker.  The 
solutions  of  reconstruction  necessitate  a  consider- 
ation of  new  automatic  machines  and  subdivisions 
of  repetitive  processes.  There  is  talk  of  a  still 

58 


LABOR 

hotter  war  of  competition  than  in  the  old  dreary 
factory  days.  All  these  discussions  of  the  British 
Association  and  "The  Round  Table"  and  the 
Fabians  and  the  government  reports  lean  in  the 
direction  of  Americanizing  and  Germanizing 
England.  When  you  have  made  a  good  work- 
man in  that  sense,  you  have  n't  made  a  good  man 
at  all.  You  have  made  a  sharpened  tool  of  pro- 
duction or  a  narrow,  concentrated  huckster.  I 
feel  in  all  this  program  something  alien  to  the 
English  nature.  Half  the  fine  virtues  of  a 
liberal  life  lie  outside  such  competitive  industrial 
requirements. 

Once  the  question  of  "wages  and  hours"  is 
settled,  and  that  is  only  a  detail  of  management 
which  will  be  settled,  we  reach  the  heart  of  the 
problem.  Can  the  curse  be  removed  from 
machinery?  Can  joy  be  put  into  work?  What 
of  the  jobs  that  are  monotonous?  Will  they 
lessen  in  number  ? 

The  instant  that  joy  enters  into  work  the 
problems  of  overtime  and  fatigue  disappear. 
Elasticity  of  spirit  gives  a  swift  recovery.  Free- 
dom to  choose  one's  work,  the  right  to  arrange 
one's  working  conditions,  skill  in  doing  the  task, 

69 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

pride  in  the  product — these  are  the  elements  that 
result  in  "joy  in  work,"  are  they  not?  What 
promise  does  the  future  give  us  that  this  quality 
of  joy  will  enter  into  the  work  of  the  masses ?  An 
eight-hour  day  and  a  minimum  wage  of  forty 
shillings  a  week  do  not  help  us  here  at  all.  Will 
the  increasing  control  of  working  conditions  by 
the  workers  themselves  remove  this  curse  of 
monotony,  the  grind  of  the  machines  on  the 
human  spirit?  Will  the  fact  of  control  alter  the 
effect  of  the  work,  so  that  automatically  it  will 
pass  from  a  condition  of  slavery  to  a  condition  of 
freedom?  Will  the  worker,  in  exercising  his  will 
on  the  terms  and  conditions  of  his  employment, 
find  a  full  release  for  his  powers,  with  the  result^ 
ing  sense  of  self-expression  and  its  accompani- 
ment of  joy? 

Or  will  the  increasing  control  of  working  condi- 
tions by  the  workers  result  in  a  fundamental 
remodeling  of  the  nature  of  the  work  itself?  If 
so,  in  what  forms  will  that  change  show  itself? 
For  instance,  the  happiest  communities  of  the 
past  were  surely  settled  agricultural  communities. 
Will  the  workers  in  part  return  to  the  land, 
rendered  more  fertile  by  modern  methods  of 

60 


LABOR 

intensive  agriculture?  Will  there  be  an  era  of 
noble  building  like  that  of  the  twelfth  century? 
Will  the  modern  democracy  find  it  worth  while 
to  create  beauty? 

Then  there  remains  the  use  of  leisure.  Are  we 
to  learn  an  art  of  living?  Will  creative  activities 
be  honored?  Nothing  is  more  striking  in  the 
last  hundred  years  than  the  fact  that  the  poet  and 
the  saint  "do  not  count."  They  have  lost  control 
over  the  channels  of  power.  The  artist  in  any 
of  the  great  forms  has  little  influence  to-day.  It 
is  easy  to  reply,  "Let  the  great  artist  come,  and 
we  will  listen" ;  but  to  produce  great  persons,  the 
heart  of  the  people  must  be  turned  that  way. 
We  are  not  quiet  enough  or  responsive  enough  to 
form  and  nourish  such  growths.  Not  only  are 
the  masters  of  modern  industry  materialistic,  but 
the  workers  are  materialistic.  The  trade-union 
program,  the  socialist  platform,  the  reforms  of 
the  social  experts — all  these  center  about  matters 
of  physical  well-being  and  industrial  efficiency. 
What  has  all  this  to  do  with  outlook  on  life,  the 
knowledge  of  true  values,  an  understanding  of  the 
meaning  and  end  of  existence?  Outlook  on  life 
is  determined  by  the  use  of  leisure — by  the 

61 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

pictures  one  sees,  the  music  one  hears,  the  books 
one  reads,  the  talk  one  shares,  the  games  one 
plays.  The  only  education  an  adult  receives, 
apart  from  that  of  the  working-day,  with  its 
repetitive  processes  for  most  employees,  is  in  the 
recreation  of  his  leisure  hours.  School  ends  for 
most  of  the  human  race  at  fourteen  years  of  age. 
The  lives  of  modern  workers  are  dark  with  drudg- 
ery for  the  working  shift  and  spattered  with 
cheap  surface  sensation  in  the  hours  of  release. 
Fatigue  and  excitement  march  together  through 
our  city  streets. 

These  are  the  two  great  questions  of  our  time : 
Can  the  nature  of  work  be  ennobled?  Can  spir- 
itual values  be  restored  to  modern  life?  For 
fifteen  years  these  questions  of  what  use  shall  be 
made  of  life  under  a  true  industrial  democracy 
have  seemed  to  me  the  most  important,  the  least 
discussed  questions  of  our  day.  Now  that  in- 
dustrial democracy  is  arriving  in  England,  I  have 
put  these  questions  to  the  leaders  of  public  opin- 
ion. I  have  talked  with  Lloyd-George,  experts 
of  the  Home  Office,  of  the  work  councils,  with 
John  Burns,  Seebohm  Rowntree,  Snowden,  But- 
ton, MacDonald,  Mallon,  every  type  of  mind  in 

62 


LABOR 

the  industrial  struggle.  No  one  person  is  respon- 
sible for  the  conclusions  which  I  give,  but  they 
seem  to  me  a  just  summary  of  the  best  English 
opinion. 

Will  industry  slide  over  into  an  old-fashioned 
balance  between  agriculture  and  factory  labor? 
Can  the  curse  be  removed  from  machinery,  so  that 
the  worker  will  find  in  his  day's  work  some  of  the 
same  lift  and  satisfaction  which  Gilbert  K. 
Chesterton  finds  in  writing  books,  who  told  me, 
"I  have  fun  in  writing  my  books"  ?  These  ques- 
tions have  been  wrestled  with  since  machinery 
came  in.  Hate  of  the  machine  was  voiced  by 
Ruskin  and  Morris.  The  hope  of  a  new  and 
simpler  civilization  has  been  stated  by  Edward 
Carpenter. 

The  answer  is  clear.  The  present  tendencies 
of  all  the  leading  nations  are  altogether  in  this 
one  direction  of  more  productive  power  through 
machinery  driven  by  skilled,  semi-skilled,  and 
unskilled  workers.  Whether  there  is  not  a 
wholly  different  sort  of  life  possible,  with  a 
simpler  organization  and  richer  values;  whether 
the  old  England  of  hardy  seamen  and  quiet  farm- 
ers and  yeomen  was  not  a  more  admirable  place 

63 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

than  the  modern  city,  is  to  pose  an  academic  ques- 
tion in  the  face  of  an  obvious  overwhelming  tend- 
ency. All  the  nations  are  becoming  American- 
ized and  Germanized.  The  result  is  that  a  cheap, 
hasty  product  in  unlimited  quantity,  a  race  for 
new  markets,  hustling  and  advertising  are  in  com- 
mand of  modern  life.  All  that  is  fragrant  and 
choice  and  spacious  in  the  older  England  is  be- 
ing caught  into  the  whirl  of  these  wheels.  This 
tendency  is  summed  up  by  two  words :  some  call 
it  progress,  and  some  call  it  civilization.  It, is 
the  judgment  of  experienced  men  that  the  mass  of 
the  people  will  never  flock  back  to  agriculture  in 
an  industrial  country.  England  will  not  become 
more  like  Russia.  On  the  contrary,  Russia  will 
become  more  like  England.  The  machine  is  in 
permanent  control  of  industrial  life.  New  au- 
tomatic appliances  will  be  created;  new  subdivi- 
sions of  process  will  be  devised. 

To  offset  this  dead  uniformity,  there  is  the  con- 
stant demand  for  new  goods.  No  sooner  has  the 
manufacture  of  one  article  become  standardized 
than  the  demand  for  something  quite  new  arises. 
It  is  only  after  this  has  been  manufactured  for  a 
considerable  time  on  a  large  scale  that  its  manu- 

64 


LABOR 

facture  becomes  standardized.  Meanwhile  there 
is  much  skilled  work  in  connection  with  it.  But 
the  percentage  of  highly  skilled  men  who  make 
the  tools,  install  them,  and  direct  this  new  process 
is  small.  There  remains  the  vast  and  ever- 
increasing  mass  of  semi-skilled  workers  who  per- 
form the  endlessly  repeated  processes.  The 
highly  skilled  man  finds  a  measure  of  satisfaction 
in  the  exercise  of  his  craft.  A  certain  few  ma- 
chines have  a  delicacy  of  touch,  and  turn  out  a 
beautiful  product,  so  that  those  who  tend  them 
receive  a  pleasure  in  superintending  the  opera- 
tion. Seebohm  Rowntree  told  me  of  a  machine 
in  his  York  factory  which  lays  down  three  colors 
at  one  time  on  shiny  paper,  and  does  it  with  a 
finger  manipulation  which  seems  semi-human. 
The  men  in  charge  of  this  process  thoroughly  en- 
joy their  silent  partner.  Work  for  them  is  not 
monotonous.  But  these  workers  of  skill  or  happy 
processes  are  few  in  number  compared  with  the 
millions  in  industry.  For  the  great  majority  of 
workers  there  is  little  joy  in  their  tasks  or  small 
pride  in  the  products.  The  worker  does  not  look 
on  the  Mauretania  and  say  to  himself,  "I  built 
her,"  because  he  tooled  the  rivets  which  went  into 

65 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

the  engines,  though  that  is  exactly  the  thing 
which  the  workman  did  say  eight  centuries  ago 
when  he  chiseled  his  masonic  mark  on  the  gray 
stone  of  the  cathedral.  To-day  he  seeks  for  an 
escape  from  the  monotony  of  a  weary  process  in 
other  things  than  in  the  work  itself.  He  regards 
machine  labor  as  a  drudgery.  The  series  of  mo- 
tions is  beginning  to  become  standardized.  Ex- 
perts go  through  factories  distributing  cards  that 
analyze  the  motions  required  to  convert  raw  ma- 
terial into  commodities.  The  worker  is  shown 
how  to  economize  effort,  how  to  make  fewer 
strokes,  and  how  to  shorten  the  stroke,  how  to 
lessen  the  time  of  production  from  four  hours  to 
two  hours  and  thirty-three  minutes.  This  drift 
toward  organization  and  mechanical  efficiency 
will  never  be  checked.  It  will  gather  momentum. 
The  worker  himself  is  often  in  favor  of  the  auto- 
matic labor-saving  machine  if  his  standard  of  liv- 
ing is  maintained  and  raised,  as  against  the  ma- 
chine that  calls  for  an  exercise  of  skill.  He  pre- 
fers to  save  his  vitality,  his  mental  reserve  forces, 
for  his  life  outside  the  factory,  for  the  creation 
of  social  values  in  his  neighborhood  and  the  fur- 
therance of  the  causes  that  interest  him. 

66 


LABOR 

There  is  a  clever  and  aggressive  school  of  in- 
dustrialists in  England  who  will  try  to  speed  up 
industry  without  winning  the  cooperation  of  the 
worker.  They  will  seek  to  install  a  scientific 
piece  rate  based  on  time  study  of  factory  opera- 
tions, standardization  of  equipment,  motion 
study  of  the  actions  of  the  worker  in  performing 
a  piece  of  work,  instruction-cards  governing  every 
bodily  movement  of  every  worker,  and  a  set  of 
"speederjs-up" — speed  boss,  repair  boss,  shop  dis- 
ciplinarian. This  Americanizing  of  industry 
does  not  look  genial  to  the  British  workman. 
He  will  not  accept  it  if  it  precedes  the  installa- 
tion of  work  councils;  that  is,  boards  of  control, 
in  which  he  is  represented.  He  will  insist  on  his 
share  in  workshop  control.  He  will  obtain  it. 
Then  industrial  organization  will  proceed  along 
the  inevitable  lines  of  efficiency  and  scientific 
management.  The  further  this  tendency  goes, 
the  wider  becomes  the  separation  between  the 
handful  of  skilled  workers  who  shape  the  tools 
and  set  them  up  and  the  mass  of  unskilled  work- 
ers directed  by  cards,  routing,  and  scheduling. 

There  will  be  no  return  to  a  peaceful  peasant 
folk.  The  dreams  of  Ruskin  and  William  Mor- 

67 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

ris  must  be  laid  aside.  The  mechanical  processes 
of  industry  cannot  be  humanized;  they  can  only 
be  mitigated.  The  relations  between  employer 
and  employed  can  be  humanized;  the  Welfare 
Department  of  the  Government  is  humanizing 
them.  Individual  employers  have  long  strug- 
gled to  humanize  them ;  but  this  cooperation,  this 
kindlier  atmosphere,  is  itself  only  a  mitigation  of 
the  conditions  of  work,  and  cannot  alter  the  na- 
ture of  the  work.  Not  in  the  work  itself,  but  in 
the  creation  of  values  outside  the  working  shift, 
must  the  mass  of  people  find  their  escape  from 
monotony.  As  the  worker  receives  his  higher 
wage  and  his  margin  of  leisure,  he  must  by  in- 
dividual and  collective  enterprise  lift  himself 
from  the  machine-made  mediocrity  of  our  mod- 
ern world.  The  worker  will  not  become  a  man 
till  after  hours.  A  blessing  can  be  wrung  from 
the  machine  only  on  its  own  terms.  It  is  a  com- 
fort, although  a  stern  comfort,  to  know  the  direc- 
tion in  which  we  are  going.  Knowing  that,  we 
can  govern  the  pace  and  better  the  road.  Such 
is  the  answer  on  removing  the  curse  from  machin- 
ery. 

What  of  the  worker's  conditions  after  hours? 
68 


LABOR 

The  solutions  of  almost  all  our  social  problems 
are  already  in  operation  locally  in  patches  in  parts 
of  Europe.  Denmark  has  solved  one  problem, 
Sweden  another,  and  Belgium  a  third.  It  needs 
now  experts  to  pool  these  solutions  into  a  pro- 
gram and  apply  it  wholesale.  Transportation 
and  housing  lie  at  the  heart  of  the  problem  of  en- 
vironment. Where  the  worker  lives,  and  in  what 
sort  of  home  he  lives,  determine  the  conditions 
that  surround  him  outside  his  working  hours. 
State  action  here  is  necessary,  and  state  action 
will  be  taken. 

For  two  years  prior  to  the  outbreak  of  war  a 
committee  had  been  sitting  to  consider  land  and 
housing  reform,  and  had  brought  in  definite  and 
far-reaching  proposals.  These  proposals  were 
being  very  seriously  considered  by  the  Govern- 
ment. It  is  probable  that  a  bill  covering  many 
of  the  reforms  suggested  would  have  been  intro- 
duced but  for  the  war.  There  is  every  reason  to 
believe  that  these  reforms  will  come  to  the  front 
as  soon  as  the  war  is  over.  One  of  these  meas- 
ures deals  with  compulsory  town-planning.  In- 
stead of  building  from  thirty  to  forty  houses  to 
the  acre,  only  thirteen  will  be  allowed.  This 

69 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

means  that  every  workman's  house  will  have  its 
decent  privacy,  its  bit  of  garden.  Another  pro- 
posal is  for  a  system  of  general  transportation  by 
means  of  light  railways.  Belgium  has  had  about 
one  hundred  miles  of  light  railways  for  every 
three  and  a  half  miles  in  England.  This  gives  a 
network  of  cheap  transportation  covering  the  en- 
tire area  around  the  great  industrial  centers.  I 
used  to  ride  into  Ghent  from  Zele,  from  Melle, 
from  every  one  of  the  smaller  towns  outside  the 
city.  Wherever  I  have  stayed  in  Belgium, 
whether  at  Furnes,  Dixmude,  La  Panne,  Nieu- 
port,  or  Ostend,  the  whole  country-side  was 
woven  with  tiny  steam  railways,  carrying  pas- 
sengers for  a  few  sous.  This  system  gives  easy 
transportation  for  the  worker  from  his  home  in 
the  suburb  to  his  lathe  in  the  factory.  It  means 
that  he  can  live  on  a  little  land  and,  with  his  fam- 
ily, carry  on  light  gardening,  reducing  his  cost 
of  living,  with  an  occasional  sale  in  the  market. 
The  combination  of  the  two  measures, — town- 
planning  and  cheap  transportation, — applied  to 
England,  will  end  the  slum  by  draining  it  dry, 
and  by  substituting  a  village  community  in  pleas- 
ant surroundings.  It  means  a  gradual,  but,  in 

70 


LABOR 

the  end,  complete,  remaking  of  the  environment 
for  the  workers.  And  an  environmental  change 
so  vast  will  recreate  the  physical  life  of  the  na- 
tion. 

These  measures  are  nothing  but  simple  primi- 
tive justice.  They  are  merely  animal  rights. 
They  do  not  deal  with  the  basic  spiritual  needs 
of  the  community.  Having  won  his  emancipa- 
tion from  poverty  and  the  serf  conditions  of  in- 
dustry, the  worker  must  face  the  intellectual  bar- 
renness of  his  life.  Through  no  fault  of  his  own 
he  is  poorly  fitted  for  the  role  he  is  now  called  on 
to  play.  He  is  uneducated,  unimaginative,  un- 
equipped to  create  the  values  in  life  which  an 
industrial  democracy  will  require  in  order  to  sur- 
vive the  dreary  hours  of  monotonous  machine 
work,  however  shortened  and  however  highly 
paid,  and  the  increased  hours  of  leisure.  Fail- 
ing a  solution  for  his  overplus  of  vitality  and  for 
the  unemployment  of  his  higher  faculties,  he  will 
be  thrown  back  on  rebellion  as  release  for  his  un- 
f unctioning  energy. 

The  supreme  need  of  English  labor  is  wise 
leadership.  That  leadership  will  not  allow  this 
new  energy,  released  by  better  wages  and  short- 

71 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

ened  hours,  to  spend  itself  in  strife  and  rebellion. 
The  tragedy  of  the  labor  movement  has  been  that 
its  leaders  have  often  been  sucked  up  by  the  Gov- 
ernment, becoming  official  investigators,  parli- 
amentarians, committee-men.  Or  the  skilled  in- 
telligent worker  has  passed  over  into  the  ranks 
of  the  employer.  The  succession  of  lost  leaders 
has  quenched  the  enthusiasm  of  the  mass  of  the 
people,  lessened  their  power  of  vision,  and  made 
them  cynical  of  lifting  themselves  to  a  full,  free 
life.  If  the  shoulders  of  the  people  are  used  by 
their  most  vital  representatives  only  to  be  climbed 
upon  into  positions  of  individual  prestige,  the 
people  themselves  will  be  little. bettered  by  gen- 
erating men  of  power.  The  labor  leader  must 
find  his  career  inside  his  class.  He  must  forego 
the  easy  advantages  of  a  thousand-pound  gov- 
ernment salary.  There  are  few  wise  leaders  to- 
day inside  the  ranks  of  the  workers. 

As  the  result,  the  immediately  practical  next 
steps  in  the  social  revolution  are  clearly  seen,  but 
the  creative  readjustment  that  will  make  Eng- 
land into  a  free,  liberal  community  is  not  seen. 
The  worker  is  about  to  share  control  of  his  work- 
ing conditions  with  the  "management."  His 

72 


LABOR 

hours  will  be  shortened,  his  wages  will  be  in- 
creased,— the  increase  has  already  reached  about 
one  third  of  the  industrial  population, — he  will 
have  a  voice  in  workshop  conditions,  his  physical 
environment  in  his  leisure  hours  will  be  amelior- 
ated. His  house  will  be  situated  in  a  decent  com- 
munity, with  space  around  it  for  flowers  and  home 
gardening.  Vocational  training  will  be  given  to 
his  children.  This  will  come  by  a  series  of  ex- 
perimental measures,  beginning  with  part-time 
employment  in  industry  for  those  between  the 
ages  of  fourteen  and  eighteen. 

But  a  greater  reconstruction  than  all  this 
journeyman's  work  is  needed.  If  the  workers 
are  able  to  develop  leaders  and  to  retain  them, 
that  leadership  will  concern  itself  in  part  with 
the  cultural  life  of  the  people.  There  is  no  great 
future  for  labor  except  through  education.  The 
American  film,  the  public  house,  the  ha'penny 
newspaper,  and  professional  foot-ball  are  not 
sufficient  of  themselves  to  make  a  new  world.  If 
English  labor  contents  itself  with  gains  in  the 
mechanic  and  physical  conditions  of  life,  the  form 
of  solution  will  crystallize  into  its  own  kind  of 
neo-Toryism.  The  same  meaningless  material- 

73 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

ism  will  continue  to  sterilize  and  wither  the  minds 
of  men.  Now  the  minds  of  officials  and  experts, 
workers  and  employers,  are  malleable,  now  the 
national  consciousness  has  been  melted  into  hot 
and  fluid  form.  Now  is  the  time  to  shape  and 
fuse  that  molten  mass. 

"We  are  going  around  to-day  with  a  different 
brain  under  our  cap  from  the  brain  we  carried 
three  years  ago,"  a  leading  official  of  the  Amal- 
gamated Society  of  Engineers  said  to  me. 

This  is  true  of  him  and  his  fellow-workers,  true 
of  the  politicians,  and  true  of  the  employers. 
Before  that  brain  cools  to  a  new  case-bound 
orthodoxy  it  must  come  to  grips  with  larger  prin- 
ciples of  social  reconstruction  than  any  it  has 
been  dealing  with  in  trade-union  regulations. 
There  is  no  discharge  in  this  war.  We  need  a 
new  community,  eager  and  unsatisfied,  aiming 
after  a  nobility  of  life  of  which  the  modern  world 
has  had  no  vision.  Let  labor  look  to  its  task. 
Time  presses.  In  five  years  England  will  have 
cooled  down,  and  the  impulse  of  the  war,  throw- 
ing old  values  into  the  furnace,  will  have  spent  it- 
self. Men  will  reproduce  the  old  world,  with  its 
barrenness  of  materialism,  its  hunt  after  cheap 

74 


LABOR 

amusements,  its  immense  mediocrity,  its  spiritual 
deadness,  its  nervous  restlessness,  its  suppres- 
sions of  vitality,  and  its  explosions  of  rebellion, 
the  same  old  round  of  dirty  little  intrigue,  be- 
cause there  will  be  no  great  purpose  to  which  life 
is  directed,  no  creative  dream  of  the  people. 

And  in  command  of  the  community  will  be  the 
same  old  gang  of  clever  politicians  feeding  out 
materialistic  catchwords  of  "Peace  and  prosper- 
ity," the  adroit  editors  ministering  to  sensation 
as  a  substitute  for  creative  activity.  If  the  work- 
ers dodge  and  postpone  this  fundamental  point 
in  their  emancipation,  they  will  give  us  a  world 
little  better  than  the  Victorian  mess.  They  will 
give  us  something  very  like  a  prosperous  Ameri- 
can industrial  city  such  as  Detroit.  The  privi- 
leged class,  with  its  neat  formulas  of  restricted 
education  and  established  church,  has  long  lost 
its  control  of  the  community.  The  brief  reign 
of  the  captains  of  industry,  contributing  no  ideas 
on  ethics  and  social  relationship,  ended  in  August 
of  1914.  Now  comes  the  worker.  Let  him  bet- 
ter the  management  of  life.  Patient,  kindly, 
slow,  very  loyal  to  the  man  and  the  cause  in  which 
he  believes,  the  English  worker  is  the  greatest 

75 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

democratic  force  in  the  world.  For  our  own  sal- 
vation we  must  call  on  him  to  use  his  brain.  He 
allowed  the  first  industrial  revolution  to  swing  in 
on  top  of  him  in  its  meanest  and  most  sordid 
form.  Now  that  he  takes  control  of  the  second 
industrial  revolution,  he  must  not  try  to  compress 
humanity  into  narrower  terms  than  those  which 
the  innumerable  varieties  of  the  human  spirit  have 
always  demanded.  The  masters  of  industry 
tried  this,  and  wrecked  their  world. 

Into  the  forefront  of  their  immediate  program 
of  action  the  workers  must  put  the  demand  for 
an  abolition  of  child  labor  and  for  the  creation  of 
a  general,  full-time  elementary  schooling  up  to 
the  age  of  sixteen  years.  There  must  be  sec- 
ondary and  continuation  schools  for  all  promis- 
ing pupils  up  to  the  age  of  eighteen.  There  must 
be  a  larger  number  of  universities,  and  a  democ- 
ratization of  all  the  universities.  The  best  men 
among  the  workers  must  be  as  thoroughly 
equipped  in  modern  science,  economics,  and  so- 
ciology as  the  governing  class  used  to  be  in  the 
humanities.  The  hope  of  an  enlightened  democ- 
racy lies  in  the  general  extension  of  state  educa- 
tion and  in  the  expansion  of  individual  initiative 

76 


LABOR 

in  such  experiments  for  adults  as  the  Workers' 
Educational  Association. 

But  the  workers  must  insist  that  the  education 
shall  not  be  limited  to  vocational  training,  to 
science  of  research  and  application,  to  the  impart- 
ing of  facts.  Education  must  give  an  interpre- 
tation of  life.  It  must  construct  and  impart  a 
system  of  ethics  fitted  to  our  time.  A  living 
wage  is  no  answer  to  such  a  tangle  as  that  of  sex ; 
it  is  no  answer  to  the  concerns  of  empire  and  the 
treatment  of  the  colored  races.  These  are  ethical 
matters,  demanding  hard  thinking  and  new  in- 
terpretations of  old  values.  There  are  a  dozen 
problems  clamoring  for  an  answer,  and  on  no  one 
of  them  is  there  an  adequate  body  of  recorded 
facts,  with  the  tendencies  deduced  from  them. 
Apparently,  everything  is  to  be  solved  by  plung- 
ing boldly  into  activity  and  letting  results  come. 
What  one  feels  the  absence  of  in  the  labor  move- 
ment is  fundamental  brain-work.  Here  are  new 
processes  being  developed,  new  areas  opened,  a 
revolutionary  shifting  of  the  directive  control  of 
the  modern  world  from  the  little  historic  group 
of  captains  to  the  vast  army  of  the  people  them- 
selves; and  yet  there  is  no  realization  that  so 

77 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

mighty  a  transfer  of  forces  calls  for  a  philosophy 
and  ethics  of  its  own.  If  the  workers  fail  us  in 
this,  the  patient  old-time  spirit  will  brush  aside 
their  little  artificial  structure  like  an  empty  shell 
and  begin  building  again. 

The  whole  range  of  moral  problems  has  been 
left  out  of  the  reckoning.  Changed  conditions 
have  resulted  in  an  entire  alteration  of  human  re- 
lationship; but  no  one  has  stated  the  new  ethics 
that  will  give  guidance  to  the  plain  man's  de- 
sire for  a  free,  human,  liberal  life  and  for  an  an- 
swer to  the  meaning  of  life.  The  cry  of  Dosto- 
yevsky  still  lifts  itself  in  our  night:  "Surely  I 
have  n't  suffered  simply  that  I,  my  crimes,  and 
my  sufferings  may  manure  the  soil  of  the  future 
harmony  for  somebody  else.  I  want  to  be  there 
when  every  one  suddenly  understands  what  it  has 
all  been  for.  All  the  religions  of  the  world  are 
built  on  this  longing,  and  I  am  a  believer." 

What  interpretation  of  modern  life  have  we 
had?  Not  one.  Frederick  Taylor  tells  us  to 
bind  every  thrust  of  the  hand,  every  throb  of  the 
brain,  into  an  iron  scheme  of  regularity;  Tolstoy 
tells  us  to  jump  out  of  the  system  altogether. 
But  neither  they  nor  our  other  literary  and  scien- 

78 


LABOR 

tific  prophets  have  faced  all  the  facts  resolutely 
and  thought  their  way  through  to  a  synthesis. 
Neither  peasant  mysticism  nor  scientific  man- 
agement will  put  greatness  into  the  lives  that 
ninety  out  of  every  hundred  obscure  persons  must 
live.  We  cannot  hope  for  any  saving  word  from 
the  clever  manipulators  who  cut  the  cost  of  pro- 
duction or  from  isolated  artists,  high  above  the 
combat.  The  word  must  come  from  the  worker 
who,  refusing  to  be  factory-bound,  turns  from  his 
machine  after  extracting  a  living  wage  and  be- 
comes an  interpreter  for  his  fellows.  We  wait 
for  this  word.  It  will  be  a  word  made  flesh,  and 
it  will  dwell  among  us.  It  will  not  utter  itself 
in  handicraft  communities  or  on  the  lonely  farm. 
It  will  neither  flinch  from  the  immutable  eco- 
nomic basis  of  life  nor  try  to  feed  the  human  spirit 
on  applied  science  and  novel  devices  of  speed- 
ing-up alone.  It  will  be  a  word  of  faith. 

Modern  essayists  write  retrospectively  of  the 
"age  of  faith"  as  if  faith  was  possible  only  among 
naive  men  in  an  age  of  mental  darkness.  But 
faith  is  the  product  of  a  vitality  that  is  fully  ex- 
pressed. It  has  therefore  always  been  the  pos- 
session of  vital  and  effectual  men,  and  is  found 

79 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

alike  in  Cromwell  and  Walt  Whitman.  It  is  as 
inevitably  the  sanction  of  wholesome  living  as  joy 
is  the  accompaniment  and  sanction  of  the  crea- 
tive impulse  in  love  and  art.  It  is  not  a  blind 
belief  in  what  is  not  true.  Faith  is  the  expres- 
sion of  a  belief  in  life.  The  last  century  has  been 
faithless  not  because  it  was  dynamic  and  enlight- 
ened, but  because  it  was  darkened  and  weary. 
Democracy,  with  all  its  striving,  has  produced 
thus  far  only  three  men  of  genius,  Mazzini, 
Lincoln,  and  Walt  Whitman,  and  one  of  them 
said: 

Give  me,  give  him  or  her  I  love  this  quenchless  faith. 

Is  it  a  dream? 

Nay,  but  the  lack  of  it  the  dream, 

And  failing  it  life's  lore  and  wealth  a  dream, 

And  all  the  world  a  dream. 

We  moderns  have  side-stepped  these  funda- 
mental questions  of  a  spiritual  basis  for  existence 
because  they  troubled  our  surface  life.  Mean- 
while we  heaped  up  the  immeasurable  inner  forces 
of  unanswered  desires,  unexpended  spiritual  vi- 
tality, and  frustrated  impulses  until  they  finally 
came  roaring  through  and  overswept  Europe. 

There  was  a  time  when  religion  answered  this 
80 


LABOR 

need  of  the  race  for  a  vital  expression.  It  still 
answers  the  need  of  a  part  of  the  community. 
There  are  liberal  tendencies  inside  the  church 
making  for  a  faith  which  does  not  offend  men's 
intellects  and  does  not  preach  submission  and  re- 
nunciation. A  small,  but  influential,  group  of 
workers  still  govern  their  lives  by  religious  faith. 
But  religion  in  any  organized  form,  in  any  terms 
that  are  concrete  and  susceptible  of  measurement 
and  analysis,  has  ceased  to  exist  for  the  mass  of 
the  people.  The  old  religious  penalties  and  sanc- 
tions have  been  undermined  by  modern  thought. 
Our  new,  vague  social  consciousness  has  failed 
as  yet  to  develop  any  stringent  system  of  ethics 
of  its  own,  any  code  of  relationship  which  is  bind- 
ing. In  labor  a  class  war,  in  sex  a  medieval  sup- 
pression, were  the  extent  of  present-day  vision 
up  to  the  hour  of  the  war.  For  many  genera- 
tions the  life  of  spiritual  aspiration  has  been 
starved.  There  is  no  longer  any  appeal  made  to 
it.  Our  development  is  altogether  in  the  direc- 
tion of  a  materialistic  conception  of  life,  by  leg- 
islation to  conquer  poverty,  by  machinery  to 
achieve  happiness.  It  looks  on  organization  as 
the  sole  method  of  progress,  efficiency  as  the  end 

81 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

of  being,  science  as  answering  all  the  needs  of 
the  human  consciousness,  and  scientifically  di- 
rected force  as  the  final  master  of  human  affairs. 
It  is  not  that  the  young  or  the  poor  go  wrong, 
but  that  we  all  go  wrong  in  our  commercial  civi- 
lization. We  all  live  for  sensation,  for  a  visible 
standard  of  success  in  terms  of  sense-pleasures. 
To  make  life  easy,  to  escape  the  old  perils  and 
hardships,  the  old  disciplines  and  responsibilities, 
has  become  the  chief  aim  of  the  modern  commu- 
nity. 

England  must  make  imperious  demands  of  the 
new  democracy.  We  refuse  to  rest  satisfied  with 
their  improved  housing,  easier  transportation, 
better  working  conditions.  These  are  only  the 
means  to  worthy  living.  They  do  not  deal  with 
the  business  of  living  itself.  If  the  workers  of 
England  can  create  a  community  that  "looks 
good,"  the  example  will  be  irresistible,  and  civ- 
ilization will  respond  to  it  in  every  nation.  It  is 
only  in  the  creation  of  such  communities,  where 
the  life  of  peace  is  a  thing  of  joy,  that  we  can 
look  for  the  end  of  wars.  But  in  their  community 
they  must  find  a  place  for  the  life  of  the  spirit, 
for  faith,  for  the  finer  values  of  nationality,  for 

82 


LABOR 

the  rewards  of  merit,  energy,  and  initiative. 
Because  initiative  in  the  old  industrial  serfdom 
only  bound  them  the  tighter  to  the  management, 
they  have  practised  "ca  canny."  But  when  they 
take  control,  failure  in  initiative  will  cut  the  tap- 
root and  spinal  nerve  of  their  productivity,  their 
prosperity,  and  final  well-being.  They  are 
called  on  for  a  wholly  other  set  of  qualities  than 
those  which  they  have  developed  under  the 
stresses  of  wage  conflict.  Every  situation  now 
demands  a  different  reaction  from  the  one  pro- 
duced when  a  profiteering  employer  pulled  the 
strings.  Every  new  invention,  every  automatic 
machine,  every  shortened  process,  every  device 
for  directing  muscular  force  that  will  cut  the  cost 
of  production,  is  working  for  their  benefit.  But 
their  newly  used  initiative  must  carry  further 
than  the  workshop.  It  must  wreak  itself  on  the 
community,  and  devise  a  wisdom  of  life,  fulfilling 
the  inextinguishable  longing  of  the  human  heart, 
which  has  gone  unanswered  in  recent  years  till 
it  found  its  answer  in  world  war. 

Unquestionably  in  the  last  fifty  years  the  labor 
movement,  reacting  vigorously  against  the  de- 
fenses of  privilege  projected,  often  unconsciously, 

88 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

by  organized  religion  and  class  education,  has 
made  a  drive  against  the  life  of  the  mind  and 
the  life  of  the  spirit.  Itself  a  vital  movement, 
fighting  for  freedom  and  justice,  it  has  included 
among  its  enemies  forces  which  are  themselves 
the  very  source  of  freedom  and  justice.  It  has 
done  this  because  these  forces  had  created  insti- 
tutions, such  as  the  established  church  and  the 
great  universities,  which  had  lagged  in  the  move- 
ment toward  continuing  emancipation.  But  la- 
bor cannot  carry  on  a  war  with  intelligence  and 
spirituality  without  in  the  end  being  burned  up 
by  their  fine  violet  ray.  No  philosophy  of  in- 
come will  survive  against  the  higher  demands  of 
the  human  spirit.  Labor  must  be  willing  to 
work  with  these  victorious  forces,  not  against 
them.  In  scorning  the  free  play  of  intellect  in 
the  realms  of  art  and  pure  research,  and  in  scorn- 
ing the  efforts  of  the  spirit  to  find  an  interpre- 
tation of  life  leading  to  spiritual  peace,  the  labor 
movement  has  hardened  and  strengthened  the 
very  materialism  which  is  its  own  worst  enemy. 
If  labor  holds  that  it  is  too  busy  with  its  imme- 
diate emancipation  to  trouble  with  "theoretical 
considerations,"  it  will  be  in  the  position  of  an 

84 


LABOR 

army  which  allows  itself  to  be  outflanked  and 
surrounded  because  it  is  concentrated  on  a  drive 
at  the  center.  This  is  the  gravest  issue  which 
labor  faces.  It  has  won  its  fight  for  a  decent 
standard  of  living  and  for  a  measure  of  control 
in  industry,  but  it  will  certainly  lose  the  future 
if  it  continues  to  regard  the  writer,  artist,  and 
ethical  teacher  as  parasites,  and  if  it  continues  to 
see  them  as  idlers  who  are  living  indolently  on 
the  hard  work  of  better  men.  The  labor  move- 
ment is  itself  largely  the  product  of  a  few  think- 
ers, unconnected  with  organization,  members  of 
no  party.  It  will  destroy  its  own  sources  of 
supply  and  will  become  dried  up  if  it  discourages 
fresh  liberations  inside  its  own  organism.  Its 
one  outlet  into  the  future  is  its  capacity  for 
throwing  out  experiments  in  the  creation  of  new 
varieties,  like  a  plant.  It  must  distrust  its  own 
orthodoxy  and  status  quo,  its  own  accepted  for- 
mulae and  popular  teachers,  as  it  distrusts  the  ut- 
terances of  bishops  and  class-bound  captains  of 
industry.  Only  so  will  it  manifest  a  principle 
of  vitality  charged  with  unfailing  impulses. 
Falling  short  in  this,  it  will  betray  itself  as  only 
a  single  unrelated,  short-lived  impulse,  clothing 

85 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

itself  in  one  more  limited  institution,  which  will 
become  its  tomb.  The  worker  must  not  only 
tolerate  radical  interpretative  thinking  outside 
his  own  ranks ;  he  must  welcome  it  among  his  fel- 
lows. The  initiative  of  his  leisure  hours  must 
lead  out  into  regions  of  which  he  has  been  shy 
and  suspicious.  He  must  develop  his  own  teach- 
ers and  prophets  and  artists.  The  men  of 
Ghent  had  already  done  a  little  of  this  inside  their 
cooperative  community.  The  English  worker 
must  be  as  glad  of  his  sculptor  and  his  poet  as  he 
is  of  his  labor  leader.  By  the  creative  use  of  his 
leisure  he  will  justify  his  control  over  the  com- 
ing age.  In  place  of  smart  revues  and  senti- 
mental plays  perhaps  he  will  give  us  drama,  which 
has  been  an  unused  literary  form  for  three  cen- 
turies, worthy  of  revival. 

For  one  hundred  years  the  world  has  been  si- 
lent on  the  meaning  of  life.  The  masters  were 
busy  with  their  new  devices  to  squeeze  profits, 
and  the  workers  were  too  heavy  with  their  toil 
to  think  at  all.  But  by  these  unseen  moral  com- 
pulsions, by  the  values  we  create,  every  free  act 
of  our  life  is  governed.  Everything  we  say  and 

86 


LABOR 

do  is  shot  through  with  the  color  and  accent  of 
our  conception  of  life. 

If  life  is  "playing  the  game,"  what  is  the  game, 
and  what  are  the  rules?  If  life  consists  in  mak- 
ing good,  what  is  the  good  we  are  making,  and 
what  is  the  method  of  the  making?  If  life  is 
noblesse  oblige,  who  are  the  elite,  and  what  is  the 
nature  of  their  obligation? 

The  Christian  ethics,  for  instance,  have  never 
been  tried.  Do  the  workers  intend  to  attempt 
them?  Will  they  state  them  for  us  in  modern 
terms?  What  precisely  is  our  moral  foundation 
to-day?  What  is  the  basis  of  our  happiness  and 
virtue  ? 

The  suppression  of  the  human  spirit,  the  soul, 
— that  congeries  of  impulse,  desires,  and  mem- 
ories,— has  gone  on  under  the  industrial  revolu- 
tion with  its  applied  science,  its  emphasis  on  real- 
ism, and  its  mechanical  detail.  How  faintly  the 
life  of  industry  has  taken  hold  of  the  human 
'spirit  was  revealed  by  the  great  burst  of  released 
force  that  broke  through  with  the  war.  The  na- 
tions had  been  gathering  steam  for  several  gen- 
erations till  they  blew  the  lid  off.  All  the  time 

87 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

that  the  hands  were  busy  in  repetitive  processes 
the  secret  subconscious  mind  was  generating  its 
own  forces.  Suddenly  men  saw  a  release  from 
modern  life,  an  escape  from  the  machine,  and  a 
substitute  for  the  materialistic  conception  of  ex- 
istence, and  seven  nations  went  out  with  faith  in 
their  hearts.  The  workers  themselves  were 
among  the  first  to  go  not  because  they  were 
herded  and  conscripted,  but  because  adventure 
and  change  and  faith  had  returned  to  a  very  flat 
world.  There  came  an  almost  universal  exulta- 
tion that  at  last  there  was  something  in  which  to 
believe,  something  impersonal  and  vast  on  which 
the  primal  forces  of  emotion  could  discharge 
themselves.  The  old  industrial  order  received 
its  sentence  then;  but  unless  the  new  industrial 
democracy  wins  for  us  a  creative  peace,  it,  too, 
is  doomed.  It  must  give  us  an  interpretation  of 
life  which  commends  itself  to  our  nobler  faculties 
and  not  alone  to  our  body  needs,  or  men  will  again 
turn  themselves  to  killing  in  order  to  escape  the 
greensickness  of  materialistic  peace. 


88 


LABOR 

REASONABLE   SATISFACTION 

(No  man  in  England  has  a  better  right  to  speak  on  the  principles 
of  reconstruction  than  A.  E.  Zimmern.  He  is  known  to  all  scholars 
as  the  author  of  that  distinguished  book,  "The  Greek  Common- 
wealth." He  is  known  to  English  labor  as  one  of  the  promoters  of 
the  Workers'  Educational  Association.  He  has  been  a  member  of 
the  Reconstruction  Committee  for  the  British  Government.  What 
he  and  his  group  believe  is  rather  likely  to  influence  the  direction  of 
tendency  in  the  social  movement,  and  some  of  their  belief  will  prob- 
ably be  enacted  into  law.  He  has  very  courteously  given  me  this 
statement  of  his  views  on  the  problems  of  "The  Pioneers.") 

My  own  view  about  the  campaign  for  Ger- 
manizing England  industrially  is  that  it  can't  be 
done.  The  Englishman  has  a  power  of  passive 
resistance  equal  to  that  of  no  one  else  in  the 
world  except  it  be  the  Turk.  You  can't  drive 
him.  German  education  would  be  impossible 
here  because  the  English  school-boy  would  not 
stand  it.  The  same  is  true  all  round,  and  it  is 
this  tough  and  conservative  individualism  which 
has  been  the  great  obstacle  to  the  swift  adapta- 
tions which  the  war  has  made  necessary.  That 
being  so,  one  is  thrown  back,  when  one  looks  for 
directions  of  reform,  upon  the  alternative  policy 
of  making  the  workman  think  the  work  worth 
while.  This  brings  one  to  the  problem  of  "joy 
in  work"  and  to  the  ideas  and  plans  of  Ruskin 
and  Morris. 

89 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

Ruskin  and  Morris  were  in  many  respects  fool- 
ish medievalists,  but  I  always  think  that  in  their 
insistence  that  the  work  itself,  not  wages  or 
ownership  or  anything  else,  was  the  central  prob- 
lem, they  were  in  the  true  English  tradition.  I 
think  the  future  historian  of  the  English  work- 
ing-class movement  will  regard  it  as  a  calamity 
that  they  never  really  converted  the  trade-union 
movement  to  take  their  ideas  seriously  and  make 
them  practical.  Instead,  the  trade-unionists 
were  gradually  led  astray  (as  Morris  was,  too) 
by  the  invasion  of  Marxian  ideas  from  Germany, 
which  has  put  the  whole  labor  movement  in  a 
false  position  for  a  generation;  for  it  has  made 
the  most  independent  section  of  the  most  indi- 
vidualistic people  in  the  world  profess  the  creed 
of  Socialism  without  knowing  what  it  is,  with  the 
odd  result  that  the  Independent  Labor  party, 
which  introduced  Socialism  into  the  labor  move- 
ment in  the  late  eighties,  is  now  engaged  in  the 
far  more  congenial  task  of  combating  state 
supremacy. 

However,  this  is  all  a  digression  to  explain 
why  I  think  the  time  is  ripe  for  a  new  orientation 

90 


LABOR 

of  labor  thought  on  the  lines  of  the  Ruskin-Mor- 
ris  tradition. 

I  think  the  conception  of  "joy  in  work"  needs 
careful  analysis.  I  am  sure  that  "interest"  is  n't 
the  real  thing  we  must  aim  at.  The  craftsman's 
joy  in  its  pure  form  is  rare,  and  the  fruit  of  soli- 
tude and  self-discipline.  The  English  are  not  a 
race  of  artists.  They  are  a  race  of  practical, 
cheerful,  sociable,  industrious  people  with  a  high 
general  average  of  ability.  Such  people  do  not 
aspire  to  joy;  what  they  want  is  to  get  reason- 
able satisfaction  out  of  their  daily  work,  and  the 
social  atmosphere  in  which  they  work  is  perhaps 
the  chief  natural  source  of  that  satisfaction. 
That  is  why  I  believe  that  all  these  expedients  of 
shop  committees,  etc.,  do  really  go  far  to  touch 
the  root  of  the  matter. 

There  is  another  point,  which  I  think  is  very 
important,  and  that  is  better  arrangements  re- 
garding the  choice  of  employment.  I  believe 
that  if,  without  any  other  changes  at  all,  you 
could  simply  put  all  misplaced  square  pegs  into 
square  holes  and  vice  versa,  you  would  do  an 
enormous  amount  to  increase  "satisfaction." 

91 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

This  is  a  problem  of  keeping  the  working-class 
child  at  school  long  enough  to  be  able  to  discover 
its  special  bent,  and  then  providing  skilled  voca- 
tional guidance.  A  lot  of  work  has  been  done  on 
these  lines  by  Thorndike,  Bloomfield,  and  others 
in  the  United  States,  and  we  could  do  vastly  more 
here. 

I  think  monotony  should  be  met  by  regular  ar- 
rangements for  varying  the  job.  There  is  a  vast 
amount  of  experiment  to  be  done  on  these  lines. 
I  expect  you  would  find  that  the  East-Enders 
who  go  hopping  in  Kent  work  all  the  better  for 
it  afterward. 

Leisure,  of  course,  is  being  dealt  with  by  the 
Workers'  Educational  Association,  but  I  think 
we  are  only  at  the  beginning  of  the  communal 
provision  of  leisure  and  of  real  education  for  the 
adult  citizen.  This  is  one  of  the  main  functions 
of  a  university  in  a  modern  community,  and  its 
buildings  ought  to  be  systematically  used  for 
such  purposes  in  vacation  time.  In  fact,  the  ed- 
ucational plant,  like  the  factory  plant,  ought 
never  to  be  idle. 

This  brings  me  to  the  poet  and  the  artist.  I 
have  thought  a  good  deal  about  their  absence,  be- 

92 


LABOR 

cause  I  have  the  example  of  Athens  constantly 
in  my  mind.     I  think  the  main  reasons  are  two: 

(1)  That  the  modern  world  is  too  noisy  and 
confused.     We  need  absolutely  to  cultivate  quiet. 
The  telephone,  for  instance,  is  a  devil's  invention 
for  heaving  up  delicate  growths  of  thought  by 
the  roots.     Most  of  our  possible  modern  poets 
are  journalists;  that  is,  they  never  keep  their 
poetry  in  till  it  is  mature.     This  is  specially  true 
in  the  United  States,  which  is  a  land  overflowing 
with   imagination   and   creative   feeling,   which 
hardly   ever   materializes   in   enduring   literary 
forms. 

(2)  We  lose  a  huge  amount  of  our  artistic  and 
poetic  material  by  our  neglect  of  education  in 
adolescence.     The   reasons   why   modern   town 
life  has  not  produced  its  Robert  Burns  is  that  the 
modern  industrial  system  crushes  men's  spirit  in 
adolescence  and  drives  them  to  drink  or  worse, 
from  which  they  emerge,  if  at  all,  incapable  of  the 
biggest  work. 

I  don't  think  we  can  ever  hope  to  reform  our 
social  system  without  the  artist's  help,  because 
only  the  artists  can  give  our  industrial  workers  a 
standard.  Democracy  in  industry  is  all  very 

93 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

well  up  to  a  point,  but  masons  and  bricklayers 
are  no  more  qualified  to  design  a  house  than 
navvies  are  to  decide  on  how  a  bridge  is  to  be 
built.  The  bridge  will  tumble  and  the  house  will 
be  ugly.  This  is  the  fallacy  of  the  arts  and 
crafts  movement,  which  seems  to  assume  that 
hard  work,  creative  energy,  and  joy  can  produce 
beauty.  But  beauty  has  laws  as  sure  as  the  laws 
of  dynamics,  and  only  a  combination  of  natural 
endowment  and  hard  thinking  can  discover  them. 
The  artist  is  before  all  things  a  scholar.  To  be  a 
painter  or  an  architect  is  to  be  at  school  and  to 
have  a  school,  as  the  Italians  knew.  But  schol- 
ars are  rare.  Let  us  find  those  we  have,  and 
honor  them  and  listen  to  them ;  but  do  not  let  us 
flatter  the  workman  by  telling  him  he  is  equally 
competent  to  make  their  decisions,  or  that  he  can 
experience  the  same  creative  and  reflective  joy. 


CHAPTER  III 

WOMEN 
EMANCIPATION 

TO-DAY  women  are  facing  the  same  hard 
fight  for  political  recognition  and  industrial 
status  that  men  faced  one  hundred  years  ago. 
They  are  taxed  without  being  represented;  they 
are  worked  without  being  properly  paid.  No 
phrase  sums  up  the  measure  of  their  desires,  for 
the  desire  to  be  free  is  larger  than  any  policy,  and 
creates  its  program  in  action.  And  with  each 
gain  the  desire  grows  greater  and  more  definite, 
and  extends  the  program  commensurate  with  its 
own  sense  of  life.  At  no  moment  and  at  no 
point  can  it  be  codified,  because  it  is  under  way. 
And  this  desire,  propelling  the  woman's  move- 
ment, is  only  one  projection  of  a  deep  and  po- 
tent instinct  that  is  operating  through  men  and 
women,  through  nations  and  classes.  Already  it 
has  set  Europe  on  fire.  It  may  yet  sweep  the 
world.  This  impulse  of  creative  force  has 

95 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

welled  up  from  the  depths  of  life  and  gone  out  in 
many  directions.  As  nationality,  it  has  stirred 
France  and  Poland  and  Croatia.  It  has  seethed 
through  the  colonies  and  turned  the  empire  into 
the  British  Commonwealth.  It  has  touched  the 
labor  movement  into  a  revolutionary  force.  I 

saw  the  drive  at  Ypres.     I  circled  Verdun  and 

* 

heard  those  guns.  I  have  seen  three  hundred  k- 
thousand  men  massed  in  a  small  area,  and  the,^" 
regiments  of  relief  swinging  up  the  dusty  road. 
But  I  hear  other  marching  feet  than  those,  and . 
I  know  that  this  war  is  a  little  thing  compared 
with  what  the  silent  millions  are  soon  to  be  doing 
to  this  old  earth.  The  hammers  of  their  recon- 
struction will  make  louder  thunder  than  any  of 
Picardy.  The  world  is  struggling  to  set  itself 
free,  and  there  has  been  no  such  stirring  in  a 
century.  This  movement  toward  freedom  may 
be  shackled  and  turned  to  base  uses,  like  the 
forces  liberated  by  the  French  Revolution;  but 
the  vigor  and  contagion  of  the  movement  are  as 
yet  beyond  the  control  of  any  authority,  and  may 
achieve  a  great  reconstruction  before  they  die 
away. 

This  creative  impulse  the  women  of  to-day 
96 


WOMEN 

share  with  the  miners  of  South  Wales  and  the 
poets  and  peasants  of  Ireland.  The  "woman 
question"  has  been  segregated  as  if  it  were  a 
unique  and  unrelated  problem  which  could  be 
handled  in  a  water-tight  compartment.  The 
purpose  of  the  woman's  movement,  both  trade- 
union  and  suffrage,  is  to  integrate  the  "woman 
question"  with  the  general  movement  toward 
democratic  control.  The  charge  has  been  made 
that  women  lack  the  capacity  for  organization, 
that  they  do  not  possess  the  native  and  instinc- 
tive cohesion  that  finds  expression  in  trade- 
unions.  The  answer  of  their  leaders  is  that  ab- 
sence of  organization  is  a  characteristic  of  un- 
skilled, ill-paid,  and  casual  labor,  whether  that 
labor  is  male  or  female.  Where  women  have 
been  admitted  to  skilled  trades,  as  in  the  cotton 
industry,  they  have  formed  powerful  unions  and 
kept  step  with  the  men.  Failure  to  organize  is 
not  a  failure  of  sex.  It  is  a  matter  of  training, 
opportunity,  and  wages.  As  fast  as  skilled 
trades  are  thrown  open,  as  fast  as  men's  trade- 
unions  unbolt  the  door,  as  fast  as  a  living  wage 
is  paid,  women  respond  with  the  same  qualities 
of  cohesion,  the  same  faculty  of  organization,  the 

97 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

same  understanding  of  the  principle  of  demo- 
cratic control,  that  men  have  revealed. 

But  to  be  granted  this  chance  to  display  capac- 
ity for  self-government  in  industry  the  vote  is 
necessary.  The  vote  is  necessary  because  wages 
tend  to  slide  down  when  the  worker  is  impotent 
politically.  The  woman  worker  is  unable  to 
bring  pressure  on  employers  and  the  Govern- 
ment to  enforce  her  demands.  As  an  instance, 
the  leaders  point  to  the  underpayment  which  has 
been  given  for  over  two  years  to  many  thousands 
of  women  in  government-controlled  establish- 
ments. Even  in  a  period  of  high  wages,  women 
workers  in  large  numbers  have  been  existing  on 
a  weekly  return  of  three  or  four  dollars.  A  liv- 
ing wage  is  five  dollars  a  week,  and  even  that  is 
severely  low  at  the  present  prices.  Granting  the 
difference  in  cost  of  living  between  America  and 
England,  which  is  ceasing  to  be  a  wide  differ- 
ence, the  recent  decision  of  Massachusetts  for  a 
minimum  wage  of  $8.50  a  week  for  the  woman 
gives  a  better  standard  of  living  than  the  British 
Government  minimum  of  a  pound  a  week.  To 
obtain  such  a  minimum  in  the  sweated  industries 

98 


WOMEN 

the  women  say  they  require  the  vote  as  a  method 
of  bringing  pressure  on  the  Government. 

But  they  also  say  they  must  have  the  vote  in 
order  to  win  the  full  cooperation  of  the  men's 
trade-unions.  Actually,  male  labor  will  make  a 
serious  blunder  if  it  excludes  women  from  mem- 
bership in  trade-unions,  because,  in  place  of  an 
ally,  it  will  have  an  unwilling  enemy  who  will 
inevitably  beat  down  the  wage-scale.  But  to 
make  the  men  see  the  desirability  of  including 
women  in  the  fight  for  the  high  standard  of  liv- 
ing, the  women  must  come  with  political  power 
in  their  hands.  Without  the  vote,  the  men  re- 
gard them  as  a  multitude  of  claimants,  doubling 
the  cost  of  organization,  doubling  the  number  of 
workers,  without  contributing  to  the  man's 
strength.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  to  the  in- 
terest of  the  male  trade-unions  to  welcome 
women  workers  even  if  they  remain  unenfran- 
chised. It  is  to  their  interest  because,  if  women 
remain  as  a  helot  class,  underpaid,  unorganized, 
they  will  be  used  to  scab  the  labor  market.  The 
men's  trade-unions  will  be  swamped  by  this  new 
labor  supply,  unprotected  and  competing  for 

99 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

jobs.  To  save  reconstruction  from  such  mis- 
takes, the  women  wish  the  vote  so  that  they  will 
be  permitted  to  join  male  labor  in  the  common 
fight.  The  reconstruction  which  is  under  way, 
much  of  it  the  blind  operation  of  natural  forces, 
some  of  it  the  careful  program  of  industrial 
thinkers,  will  be  incomplete  if  women  are  omitted 
from  the  trade-unions'  councils  and  the  par- 
liamentary committees. 

Great  Britain  and  Germany  were  the  two 
nations  of  the  modern  world  where  the  male  mind 
was  in  full  control  of  the  channels  of  influence 
before  the  war.  That  woman's  fields  of  activity 
were  church,  children,  and  kitchen  was  believed 
in  England  as  in  Prussia.  The  average  man 
thought  woman  a  slightly  inferior  creature,  polit- 
ically incompetent,  industrially  incapable,  men- 
tally ill  endowed.  Unconsciously,  he  has  wished 
to  keep  her  in  the  ranks  of  an  unrepresented, 
exploited,  and  casual-labor  class.  It  has  re- 
quired an  immense  force  of  concentrated  will, 
a  wide-spread  organization,  and  a  constantly 
exerted  pressure  of  what  Mr.  Lloyd-George  calls 
"strident  nagging"  for  woman  to  win  the  power- 
ful, but  now  very  delicately  balanced,  position 

100 


WOMEN 

which  she  holds  in  the  industrial  world.  She  is 
seeking  to  win  status.  Status,  or  "standing,"  is 
that  position  which  a  person  o'*  a  class  holds 
because  it  is  able  to  enforce  its  claims  by  ftolifjosl 
and  economic  power.  Influence,  whether  silent, 
unconscious,  or  indirect,  is  non-existent  except  as 
the  person  or  class  possesses  a  measure  of  demo- 
cratic control  over  the  conditions  of  life. 

This  fight  for  recognition  is  in  competent 
hands.  Mary  MacArthur,  Maude  Hoyden,  Mrs. 
Fawcett,  Mrs.  Despard,  Mrs.  Pember  Reeves, 
Mrs.  Philip  Snowden,  Clara  Collet,  Mrs.  Sidney 
Webb,  Mrs.  Bosanquet,  Miss  Atkinson,  Sylvia 
Pankhurst,  Eleanor  Rathbone,  Clementina 
Black,  and  a  dozen  more  leaders  are  women  of 
intelligence,  sanity,  and  of  much  personal  charm. 
They  are  making  careful  studies  of  industrial 
and  social  conditions.  They  are  "next-step"  re- 
formers, basing  their  program  of  action  on 
intensive  investigation,  analysis,  and  diagnosis. 

The  woman's  movement  is  fighting  a  low- 
wage  scale.  It  is  fighting  bad-shop  conditions 
and  bad-home  conditions.  It  is  concerned  with 
woman  as  an  industrial  worker  and  as  a  mother. 
It  has  a  program  of  reform  that  deals  with 

101 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

woman  in  each  of  her  two  capacities.  It  is  fight- 
ing to  free  the  narrow,  suppressed  middle-class 
woman,  to  give  her  a  good  life  of  self-expression. 
It  is  fight  jug  to  enable  high-powered,  well- 
educated  women  to  count  in  the  life  of  the  com- 
munity, to  win  for  them  fuller  representation  at 
the  universities,  a  larger  measure  of  influence  in 
civil  service  and  in  government  committees  con- 
cerned with  industrial  conditions  and  community 
welfare.  Suffrage  and  trade-unions  are  two  of 
the  instruments  with  which  to  achieve  status 
through  organization. 

In  a  matter  so  vast  and  various  as  the  woman's 
movement  any  positive  statement  of  aim  and 
direction  is  likely  to  be  disputed.  It  would  be 
impossible  that  the  leaders  should  be  committed 
to  one  single  reform  or  set  of  measures.  Each 
group  apprehends  a  special  need  with  intensity. 
What  to  get  and  how  to  get  it  are  not  seen  single- 
eyed  by  these  groups  with  the  calm  concentration 
of  Tammany  Hall.  The  catalogue  of  their 
names  shows  the  variety  of  their  activities: 
Women's  Labor  League,  the  National  Fed- 
eration of  Women  Workers,  the  Women's 
Trade-Union  League,  Women's  Industrial 

102 


WOMEN 

Council,  Women's  Cooperative  Guild,  the  Wom- 
en's Municipal  Party,  Catholic  Women's  League, 
and  many  more.  And  of  suffrage  societies  there 
are  the  National  Union  of  Women's  Suffrage 
Societies,  the  Women's  Social  and  Political 
Union,  the  Conservative  and  Unionist  Women's 
Franchise  Association,  the  Women's  Liberal 
Federation  (and  Forward  Suffrage  Union),  the 
Catholic  Women's  Suffrage  Society,  the  Wom- 
en's Freedom  League,  the  National  Industrial 
and  Professional  Women's  Suffrage  Society,  the 
New  Union,  the  New  Constitutional  Society, 
the  League  of  the  Society  of  Friends,  the 
People's  Suffrage  Federation,  the  Actresses* 
Franchise  League,  the  Society  of  Women  Grad- 
uates, the  Women  Writers'  Suffrage  League, 
the  Younger  Suffragists,  the  London  Graduates' 
Union  for  Women's  Suffrage,  the  Gymnastic 
Teachers'  Suffrage  Society,  the  Artists'  League, 
the  Suffrage  Atelier,  and  many  other  organiza- 
tions. In  what  follows  I  give  only  a  massing 
together  of  personal  impressions  from  talks  with 
many  women  interested  in  the  forward  move- 
ment. I  think  that  every  one  would  ratify  some 
part  of  the  program.  Probably  none  would 

103 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

authorize  the  full  program  as  embodying  her  own 
activity  and  desire.  What  I  think  the  woman's 
movement  of  Great  Britain  is  aiming  at  in  their 
fight  for  status,  which  will  be  mainly  waged 
through  the  instruments  of  trade-unions  and 
suffrage,  includes: 

(1)  Economic  independence.  To  understand 
this,  we  have  got  to  clear  our  talk  of  popular 
phrases.  One  of  the  portmanteau  phrases  of  our 
day  is  that  of  "women  going  into  industry." 
Women  always  were  in  industry  till  recently. 
Idle  and  unoccupied  women  were  the  exception 
in  the  older  England.  The  Victorian  Age  in 
terms  of  human  welfare  was  in  this  respect  a 
reactionary  age.  The  old-time  industry  of 
women  was  of  course  home  industry.  When 
most  of  the  productive  employments  were  lifted 
out  of  the  home,  women  remained  in  the  home, 
throwing  a  dead-weight  on  the  productivity 
of  the  nation  that  it  never  before  had  to 
carry.  The  woman  had  always  been  a  pro- 
ducer of  clothing  and  food,  and  had  shared 
the  burden  of  requirements  demanded  by  the 
household.  Suddenly  the  man  was  left  stand- 
ing alone,  with  the  weight  of  a  wife  and  chil- 

104 


WOMEN 

dren,  sister  and  aunt,  on  his  single  powers  of 
production.  That  very  recent  institution,  the 
man-supported  family,  is  a  failure.  It  is  a  fail- 
ure because  the  individual  man  alone  cannot  buy 
the  food,  the  lodging,  and  the  clothing  which 
make  the  physical  basis  of  a  good  life.  Slum- 
dwelling,  under-nourishment,  and  disease  are  the 
proof  that  the  man  has  failed  to  carry  the  burden 
of  several  human  beings  on  his  single  pair  of 
shoulders.  The  immense  numbers  of  unmarried 
men  (over  three  million),  the  restriction  of  the 
birth-rate,  are  further  proofs  of  the  breakdown 
of  that  modern  and  bad  institution,  the  man- 
supported  family.  The  present  well-being  of 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  working-men's  homes  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  one  and  two  and  even  three 
women  are  now  wage-earners  who  before  "helped 
around  the  house."  It  is  not  alone  that  the  wage 
to  the  individual  man  has  gone  up  for  perhaps 
one  third  of  the  working  population;  it  is  that 
multitudes  of  women  are  earning  money  to-day 
who  before  were  unemployed.  I  found  in  the 
Du  Cros  factory,  for  instance,  that  the  majority 
of  the  women  were  the  wives  and  relatives  of  the 
men  workers  who  had  gone  to  war.  In  the  old 

105 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

days  no  one  said,  "A  woman's  proper  place  is  the 
home,"  meaning  by  the  home  a  retreat  stripped  of 
productive  industry.  The  home  meant  a  place 
of  manufacture,  where  the  woman  shared  with  the 
man  the  burden  of  production. 

The  problem  of  the  future  is  this :  now  that  Iier 
work  is  at  a  geographical  distance  from  her  home, 
has  she  the  vitality  to  carry  on  her  activity  at  two 
widely  separated  points?  It  was  simple  to  turn 
from  the  milking  in  the  shed  to  the  baby  in  the 
kitchen ;  but  it  is  an  unsolved  problem  how  to  rear 
a  family  in  a  side  street  and  tend  a  lathe  in  the 
Woolwich  Arsenal.  War  work  for  women  has 
sharpened  this  problem.  It  is  still  an  open  ques- 
tion whether  the  excellent  wage  made  by  the 
young  mother  has  been  a  sufficient  offset  to  the 
fact  of  her  absence  from  home.  I  have  had  testi- 
mony that  the  children  under  five  years  of  age, 
left  in  the  hands  of  relatives  or  friends,  are  better 
cared  for  because  of  the  increased  family  budget. 
I  have  also  had  testimony  that  the  actual  care  of 
the  young  child  is  not  as  good  as  when  the  mother 
is  at  home.  With  overtime  and  war  strain,  all 
former  investigations  would  go  to  show  that  the 


WOMEN 

pressure  of  the  last  two  and  a  half  years  on  the 
organism  of  the  woman  will  prove  a  permanent 
damage  to  the  future  of  the  race.  The  housing 
where  large  numbers  have  been  shoveled  together 
far  from  home  is  admittedly  bad.  The  severe 
train  journeys  and  the  lack  of  moral  oversight  for 
the  younger  women  are  also  admittedly  bad. 
There  is  an  immense  amount  of  spade  work  to  be 
done  before  we  know  even  the  factors  in  the 
woman  question.  We  must  study  the  full  curve 
of  the  woman's  life,  her  adolescence,  the  changing 
curve  of  wifehood  and  motherhood,  the  nervous 
reactions  in  relation  to  function.  We  have  been 
generalizing  on  the  "nature  of  woman"  when  we 
have  only  the  slightest  psychological  basis.  It  is 
impossible  to  formulate  a  policy  or  even  a  pro- 
gram before  we  have  a  multitude  of  recorded 
observations.  In  place  of  these  we  are  treated 
to  large  and  noisy  claims  and  vehement  denials. 
Women  en  masse  have  done  their  best  by  going 
ahead  and  acting;  but  social  students  have  not 
done  their  best,  because  they  have  joined  the 
movement  and  swelled  the  volume  of  voices 
instead  of  extracting  the  data. 

107 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

To  return  to  the  list  of  aims  in  the  woman's 
movement.  I  think  that  women  believe  that 
better  status  will  be  obtained  by 

(2)  Increased  sociability.  It  is  not  alone  for 
the  economic  reason  that  woman  enters  the  indus- 
trial world  in  increasing  numbers  and,  as  in  this 
war,  joyfully  exchanges  the  home  and  domestic 
service  for  the  life  of  the  factory.  Industry  is 
sociable.  Its  organization,  the  various  contacts  of 
relationship,  answer  a  craving  in  her  nature  as  in 
the  man's.  Life  has  become  an  increasingly 
friendly  thing  down  the  ages,  and  the  lonely 
servant  or  housewife  misses  a  fulfilment  which 
even  the  underpaid  shop  girl  finds.  That  the 
shop  girl  fails  of  values  which  the  working-man's 
wife  possesses  is  equally  true.  It  is  for  the 
future  to  include  both  sets  of  values  in  the  one 
life.  In  our  overstress  of  economic  determinism 
we  are  apt  to  forget  that  people  do  things  because 
they  wish  to,  as  well  as  because  they  have  to.  So 
in  all  the  maladjustments  of  women  in  industry 
we  must  remember  that  they  are  enjoying  the 
conditions  that  surround  the  new  work — the  asso- 
ciations, the  sociability — better  than  they  enjoyed 
the  isolated,  unproductive  home.  To  overstate 

108 


WOMEN 

the  injustice  and  suffering  of  the  industrial 
situation  shows  a  lack  of  perspective  on  human 
history.  Comfort  and  well-being,  the  margin  of 
leisure,  the  elements  of  happiness,  are  greater  for 
the  mass  people  than  at  any  other  period.  A 
sullenness  and  despair  have  gone  from  the  earth. 
The  curse  is  being  removed.  Women  are 
already  sharing  in  this  betterment,  and  they  have 
recently  elected  the  industrial  world  as  a  field  of 
activity  not  because  the  factory  process  or  the 
department-store  detail  offers  in  itself  a  worthier 
work  than  the  care  of  children,  but  in  part 
because  the  conditions  surrounding  the  industrial 
world  are  freer  and  friendlier  than  the  household 
conditions.  There  is  an  atmosphere  of  change 
and  growth  and  sociability  in  paid  work,  and  a 
freedom  of  hours  when  the  work  is  done.  There 
is  probably  small  answer  to  many  needs  of 
woman's  nature  in  clerical  routine  or  mechanical 
process  work  in  factory,  office,  and  store.  It  is 
doubtless  as  sorry  a  thwarting  of  full  self-ex- 
pression for  her  as  it  is  for  the  man.  But  she 
finds  a  partial  answer  to  her  needs,  a  partial  ex- 
pression, in  the  act  of  going  out  to  a  work  of 
definitely  assigned  hours,  of  money  payment,  of 

109 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

set  periods  of  freedom  and  recreation,  of  associa- 
tion with  a  group  of  fellow-workers,  and  the 
wider  opportunity  for  social  intercourse  on  self- 
respecting  terms  with  men. 

And  so  we  come  to  what  I  believe  is  implicit 
in  the  movement  toward  industrial  work  for 
women.  I  am  sure  that  one  reason  why  they  do 
not  care  to  remain  half  occupied  in  their  own 
homes,  and  why  the  best  of  them  scorn  domestic 
service,  is  that  they  wish : 

(3)  A  freedom  of  choice  in  selecting  the  mate 
— a  freedom  which  was  imperfectly  granted  to 
the  woman  in  the  restricted  domestic  area  where 
she  formerly  passed  her  life.  She  has  rejected 
the  old  policy  of  passive  waiting  while  she  played 
the  role  of  dutiful  daughter  and  older  sister,  cul- 
minating in  the  grayness  of  unselected  "old 
maid,"  the  aunt  and  nurse  of  other  people's  chil- 
dren. To  obtain  this  freedom  of  choice  she  has 
stepped  out  into  the  wider  arena  of  the  industrial 
world.  Between  the  ages  of  eighteen  and 
twenty-five  she  is  often  not  a  determined  worker 
in  this  field.  She  puts  her  spending  money  into 
attractive  clothes  and  "a  good  time"  as  an  in- 
vestment in  aiding  her  to  select  a  mate. 

1.10 


WOMEN 

(4)  An  equality  in  the  home.    As  a  wage- 
earner  she  can  decree  the  terms  of  her  position 
in  the  household.     She  becomes  one  of  the  two 
heads  of  the  household,  and  ceases  to  be  the  un- 
paid housekeeper. 

(5)  Love.     The  deepest  craving  of  her  nature 
is  to  be  loved.     The  old-time  home  did  not  fully 
meet  this  need,  because  love  is  based  on  equality, 
and  she  was  not  an  equal. 

(6)  Intellectual    and    spiritual    recognition. 
She  wishes  her  mentality,  the  qualities  of  her  be- 
ing, to  be  understood  by  the  man  she  loves  and 
to  be  used  in  the  life  of  the  community.     She  has 
capacities  for  municipal  housekeeping,  for  wel- 
fare legislation,  for  civil  service,  which  will  en- 
rich the  state. 

(7)  A  community  motherhood.     A  majority 
of  women  will  find  self-expression  in  the  home, 
but  there  will  always  be  large  numbers  who  will 
turn  to  the  outer  world  to  express  their  mother- 
ing instinct.     They  will  express  it  by  nursing, 
school-teaching,     reform     movements,     welfare 
work,  and  in  the  humanizing  of  industry. 

(8)  Career  impulse.     Increasing  numbers  of 
women  find  the  same  fullness  of  life  in  certain 

111 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

forms  of  modern  work  that  men  find.  They  are 
developing  directive  capacity,  accuracy,  a  mas- 
tery over  large  groups  of  facts  and  a  power  of 
generalization. 

Finally,  we  come  to  the  most  fundamental  of 
all  the  claims  made  by  women.  They  wish: 

(9)  Birth-control.  The  modern  woman 
wishes  a  final  voice  in  the  decision  as  to  the  num- 
ber of  her  offspring.  She  refuses  to  place  her- 
self at  the  disposal  of  the  man,  to  be  used  as  he 
sees  fit.  Many  feminists  will  angrily  deny  that 
this  is  a  tendency  of  the  woman's  movement. 
Probably  no  leader  will  state  openly  that  this 
tendency  exists  among  modern  women.  But  the 
vital  statistics  of  the  various  countries  establish 
the  fact,  and  Great  Britain,  apart  from  the  low- 
est elements  of  the  population,  has  for  forty  years 
revealed  a  falling  birth-rate.  One  can  exempt 
many  persons  and  many  groups  from  the  im- 
plication that  they  have  furthered  this  tendency, 
and  still  be  well  inside  what  the  facts  show  in 
stating  that  a  powerful  portion  of  the  woman's 
movement,  while  not  openly  advocating  birth- 
control,  have  nevertheless  practised  it,  and  that 
the  emancipation  of  women  is  proceeding  to  the 


WOMEN 

accompaniment  of  a  falling  birth-rate.  The  un- 
willingness here  to  state  the  belief  on  which  one 
acts  is  probably  the  last  relic  of  the  shame  of  sex 
which  English  and  Americans  share  in  equal 
measure. 

The  relationship  of  worker  to  master  has 
passed  through  slavery,  serfdom,  and  the  wage- 
nexus  up  to  free  labor.  The  relationship  of 
women  and  man  has  had  no  such  sharp  stages, 
marked  by  a  time  division.  But  woman  has 
been,  variously  and  sometimes  in  the  single  rela- 
tionship, the  instrument  of  household  service,  the 
instrument  of  pleasure,  and  the  instrument  of 
race  procreation.  In  none  of  these  relationships, 
as  houri,  squaw,  or  mother  in  Israel,  has  she  been 
the  free  agent.  Her  position  has  been  assigned 
her  by  man.  The  code  of  ethics  governing  her 
conduct  has  been  created  by  what  man  thinks 
about  her,  and  what  he  decrees  she  ought  to  be 
and  to  produce.  He  has  assigned  the  limits,  the 
conditions,  and  the  kind  of  her  activity.  As  she 
steps  out  into  freedom,  and,  in  particular,  strikes 
a  balance  between  her  function  as  worker  and 
citizen  and  her  function  of  motherhood,  she  pre- 
sents the  community  with  this  far-reaching  prob- 

113 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

lem  of  birth-control.  In  what  is  one  of  the  few 
great  books  of  this  century,  "Why  Men  Fight," 
I  read: 

Very  large  numbers  of  women,  when  they  are  suffi- 
ciently free  to  think  for  themselves,  do  not  desire  to 
have  children,  or  at  most  desire  one  child  in  order  not 
to  miss  the  experience  which  a  child  brings.  There 
are  women  who  are  intelligent  and  active-minded  who 
resent  the  slavery  to  the  body  which  is  involved  in  hav- 
ing children.  There  are  ambitious  women,  who  desire 
a  career  which  leaves  no  time  for  children.  There  are 
women  who  love  pleasure  and  gaiety,  and  women  who 
love  the  admiration  of  men ;  such  women  will  at  least 
postpone  child-bearing  until  their  youth  is  past.  All 
these  classes  of  women  are  rapidly  becoming  more  nu- 
merous, and  it  may  be  safely  assumed  that  their  num- 
bers will  continue  to  increase  for  many  years  to  come. 

It  is  too  soon  to  judge  with  any  confidence  as  to  the 
effects  of  women's  freedom  upon  private  life  and  upon 
the  life  of  the  nation.  But  I  think  it  is  not  too  soon 
to  see  that  it  will  be  profoundly  different  from  the 
effect  expected  by  the  pioneers  of  the  women's  move- 
ment. Men  have  invented,  and  women  in  the  past  have 
often  accepted,  a  theory  that  women  are  the  guardians 
of  the  race,  that  their  life  centers  in  motherhood,  that 
all  their  instincts  and  desires  are  directed,  consciously 
or  unconsciously,  to  this  end.  Tolstoy's  Natacha 
illustrates  this  theory:  she  is  charming,  gay,  liable  to 


WOMEN 

passion,  until  she  is  married;  then  she  becomes  merely 
a  virtuous  mother,  without  any  mental  life.  This  re- 
sult has  Tolstoy's  entire  approval.  It  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  it  is  very  desirable  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  nation,  whatever  we  may  think  of  it  in  rela- 
tion to  privajte  life.  It  must  also  be  admitted  that  it 
is  probably  common  among  women  who  are  physically 
vigorous  and  not  highly  civilized.  But  in  countries  like 
France  and  England  it  is  becoming  increasingly  rare. 
More  and  more  women  find  motherhood  unsatisfying, 
not  what  their  needs  demand.  And  more  and  more 
there  comes  to  be  a  conflict  between  their  personal  de- 
velopment and  the  future  of  the  community. 

The  diminution  of  numbers,  in  all  likelihood,  will  rec- 
tify itself  in  time  through  the  elimination  of  those  char- 
acteristics which  at  present  lead  to  a  small  birth-rate. 
Men  and  women  who  can  still  believe  the  Catholic  faith 
will  have  a  biological  advantage;  gradually  a  race 
will  grow  up  which  will  be  impervious  to  all  the  assaults 
of  reason,  and  will  believe  imperturbably  that  limitation 
of  families  leads  to  hell-fire.  Women  who  have  mental 
interests,  who  care  about  art  or  literature  or  politics, 
who  desire  a  career  or  who  value  their  liberty,  will 
gradually  grow  rarer,  and  be  more  and  more  replaced 
by  a  placid  maternal  type  which  has  no  interests  out- 
side the  home  and  no  dislike  of  the  burden  of  mother- 
hood. This  result,  which  ages  of  masculine  domination 
have  vainly  striven  to  achieve,  is  likely  to  be  the  final 
Outcome  of  women's  emancipation  and  of  their  attempt 

115 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

to  enter  upon  a  wider  sphere  than  that  to  which  the 
jealousy  of  men  confined  them  in  the  past. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  a  recent  talk  which  I 
had  with  Havelock  Ellis  he  expressed  himself  as 
wholly  in  favor  of  the  birth-control  movement. 
He  believes  it  will  tend  to  do  away  with  war  and 
poverty.  He  spoke  with  approval  of  the  pub- 
licity campaign  carried  on  in  America  by  Mrs. 
S  anger,  and  he  showed  me  a  copy  of  a  little  maga- 
zine of  birth-control,  issued  in  Cleveland,  Ohio. 
In  his  latest  book,  "Essays  in  War-Time,"  he 
writes : 

It  used  to  be  thought  that  small  families  were  im- 
moral. We  now  begin  to  see  that  it  was  the  large  fam- 
ilies of  old  which  were  immoral.  Quality  rather  than 
quantity  is  the  racial  ideal  now  set  before  us. 

He  speaks  of  the  evil  Russian  factory  conditions  as 
"the  natural  and  inevitable  result  of  a  high  birth-rate 
in  an  era  of  expanding  industrialism.  Here  is  the 
goal  of  unrestricted  reproduction,  the  same  among  men 
as  among  herrings.  This  is  the  ideal  of  those  persons, 
whether  they  know  it  or  not,  who  in  their  criminal  rash- 
ness would  dare  to  arrest  that  fall  in  the  birth-rate 
which  is  now  beginning  to  spread  its  beneficent  influ- 
ence in  every  civilized  land." 

He  sees  birth-control  as  a  natural  process,  with 
116 


WOMEN 

laws  that  underlie  the  voluntary  and  deliberate 
factors.  "To  improve  the  environment  is  to 
check  reproduction,"  so  that  birth-control  be- 
comes part  of  the  entire  forward  movement  of 
the  race.  "Those  who  desire  a  high  birth-rate 
are  desiring,  whether  they  know  it  or  not,  the  in- 
crease of  poverty,  ignorance,  and  wretchedness." 
All  this  concerns  the  nation  within  itself.  With 
the  international  aspect  of  birth-control,  which  is 
the  heart  of  the  problem,  the  next  chapter  deals. 
We  are  confronted  here  by  the  most  significant 
tendency  in  modern  civilization.  As  yet  we  are 
meeting  it  with  silence  or  with  rhetoric,  with  a 
Mosaic  morality  or  a  callous  cynicism ;  but  of  pa- 
tient study  there  is  little.  The  modern  woman 
has  precipitated  upon  us  many  problems, — "dilu- 
tion" of  labor,  and  union  rules,  and  all  the  rest, 
— but  no  other  problem  so  searching,  so  funda- 
mental, as  that  of  birth-control.  The  correct  so- 
lution will  be  determinative  of  the  future  of  the 
race,  the  nation,  and  the  world. 

Like  every  other  living  and  growing  thing, 
the  woman's  movement  will  continue  to  puzzle  us, 
and  we  shall  catch  up  with  it  only  to  find  it  has 
swung  out  far  ahead  and  over  a  wider  area. 

117 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

THE   FEMINISTS   OF   THE   WAE  OFFICE  AND 
ADMIRALTY 

The  War  Office  and  the  Admiralty  are  prov- 
ing themselves  in  this  war  daring  innovators  of 
radicalism.  They  will  be  ranked  in  the  future 
alongside  of  the  syndicalists  and  the  state  social- 
ists as  initiators  of  a  new  social  order.  They  have 
accepted  the  "new  morality"  of  the  most  advanced 
school  of  Ellen  Key,  and  have  enacted  it  into 
legislation.  What  they  have  done  is  to  concede 
the  claims  of  "sex  agitators"  and  grant  an  en- 
dowment for  maternity  to  the  women  of  Great 
Britain.  They  have  not  paused  at  orthodox 
motherhood,  sanctioned  by  court  and  church,  but 
in  their  impetuous  feminism  they  have  legitimized 
unions  without  the  benefit  of  clergy,  and  are  car- 
ing for  unmarried  wives  and  mothers.  They 
have  made  the  advanced  program  of  the  woman's 
movement  their  own,  and  have  swallowed  whole 
the  scouts,  cavalry  fringe,  and  lonely  outposts 
of  sex  radicalism.  The  British  people  had 
largely  confined  the  woman's  question  to  a  suf- 
frage and  trade-union  movement,  a  political 
movement.  They  had  fought  shy  of  the  sex  im- 

118 


WOMEN 

plications  (maternity  endowment,  unmarried 
motherhood)  upon  which  certain  advanced  think- 
ers in  Germany  and  the  Scandinavian  countries 
had  long  been  insistent.  But  at  one  bold  stroke 
the  audacious  pioneers  of  the  army  and  navy  have 
opened  the  full  question,  and  brushed  aside  the 
reserve  and  timidity  which  Britons,  like  Ameri- 
cans, manifest  in  the  presence  of  procreation. 
The  result  is  a  scheme  as  amazing  as  if  Kitchener 
and  Havelock  Ellis  had  worked  in  genial  col- 
laboration. Militarism  in  England  has  proved 
a  powerful  dynamic  for  democratic  control.  It 
has  bettered  the  status  of  labor,  and  it  has  created 
the  new  British  commonwealth  of  five  self-gov- 
erning democracies.  The  longer  it  is  on  top,  the 
more  equality  it  generates  among  its  conscripts. 
But  nothing  it  has  done  is  so  subversive  of  the 
old  order  as  this  endowment  of  maternity. 
Into  what  fresh  fields  of  liberalism  the  staff- 
officers  and  sea-lords  will  break  during  the 
coming  months  no  observer  will  now  dare 
predict. 

Eleanor  Rathbone,  the  famous  town  councilor 
of  Liverpool,  says  of  these  military  and  naval 
feminists : 

119 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

In  the  system  of  separation  allowances  they  have 
been  conducting  what  is,  in  effect,  the  greatest  experi- 
ment that  the  world  has  ever  seen  in  the  State  endow- 
ment of  maternity.  At  the  outbreak  of  the  present 
war  separation  allowances  were  promised,  first  to  the 
wives  and  children,  and  afterwards,  in  succession,  to 
all  other  classes  of  dependents  of  both  soldiers  and 
sailors.  The  scale  is  sufficient  at  least  to  place  the 
large  majority  of  dependents  of  soldiers  and  sailors  in 
as  good  or  better  a  position  financially  than  that  which 
they  occupied  before  the  war.  The  separation  allow- 
ance is  the  possession  of  the  wife  and  not  of  the  hus- 
band, and  cannot  be  drawn  by  him  even  with  her  con- 
sent. Thus,  the  allowance  has,  in  fact  (whatever  the 
intention  of  the  Government  may  have  been),  two  char- 
acteristics which  we  should  expect  to  find  in  a  sys- 
tem of  State  endowment  of  maternity,  viz.:  it  is  a 
statutory  payment  to  a  woman  in  respect  of  her  func- 
tions as  wife  and  mother,  and  it  is  proportionate  in 
amount  to  the  number  of  her  children. 

What  really  matters  is  not  that  the  greater  part  of 
the  upper,  middle,  and  upper  working-classes  restrict 
their  families,  but  that  the  strata  below  them,  includ- 
ing the  whole  slum  population,  practise  no  such  re- 
striction. They  multiply  quite  freely,  and  public 
health  authorities  combine  with  private  benevolence  to 
do  just  enough  to  keep  the  babies  so  born  alive,  but 
not  enough  to  make  them  healthy.  Hence,  we  are,  as 
a  nation,  recruiting  the  national  stock  in  increasing 

120 


WOMEN 

proportions  from  the  lower  and  least  desirable  ele- 
ments in  the  population.  The  first  advantage  of  sepa- 
ration allowances  is,  then,  that  it  removes  the  tempta- 
tion to  undue  restriction  of  families  from  those  far- 
seeing  and  cautious  parents  who  now  practise  it,  and 
that  it  gives  to  the  younger  members  of  large  families 
a  better  chance  of  healthy  maintenance  than  they  have 
$ver  had  before. 

It  will  be  interesting  to  see  how  these  women  will 
take  it  when  the  war  is  over  and  they  are  asked  to 
go  back  to  their  old  status  of  dependency.  I  confess 
to  hoping  that  the  seeds  of  "divine  discontent"  will 
have  been  implanted  in  them  too  deeply  to  be  eradi- 
cated, and  that  we  feminists  will  then  find  our  oppor- 
tunity. The  economic  soundness  of  the  State  endow- 
ment of  maternity  has  always  appealed  to  me,  even 
more  strongly,  if  possible  than  its  humanitarian  and 
eugenic  advantages.  Many  people  do  not  seem  even  to 
have  grasped  the  elementary  truth  that  the  work  of 
bearing  and  rearing  the  rising  generation  is  the  occu- 
pation of  all  occupations  that  is  most  absolutely  essen- 
tial to  the  existence  of  the  State.  The  women  who  are 
engaged  in  this  occupation  have  to  be  maintained,  and 
so  have  their  children  until  they  are  of  an  age  to  keep 
themselves.  The  money  that  this  costs  has  to  come 
from  somewhere. 

These  separation  allowances  are  the  first  seri- 
ous attempt  made  by  the  Government  to  deal 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

with  the  question  of  population,  the  most  funda- 
mental question  which  the  nation  faces.  If  half 
a  million  of  the  young  men  are  killed  or  hope- 
lessly incapacitated  by  this  war,  the  resources  of 
the  country  are  diminished  beyond  repair  unless 
a  method  of  replenishment  is  instituted.  Our 
past  method  of  allowing  the  slum  population  to 
multiply,  and  forcing  our  better-class  workers  to 
restrict  their  families,  is  national  suicide.  Eng- 
lish thought  is  almost  silent  on  this  question  of 
whence  the  next  generation  is  to  come  when  the 
number  of  the  fathers  is  lessened.  There  is  a 
buzz  of  talk  on  tillage,  cattle-raising,  fertility  of 
soil,  but  of  how  to  get  the  human  product  there  is 
little  said.  Bertrand  Russell  says : 

It  seems  unquestionable  that  if  our  economic  system 
and  our  moral  standards  remain  unchanged,  there  will 
be,  in  the  next  two  or  three  generations,  a  rapid  change 
for  the  worse  in  the  character  of  the  population  in 
all  civilized  countries,  and  an  actual  diminution  of 
numbers  in  the  most  civilized. 

There  is  reason  to  fear  in  the  future  three  bad  re- 
sults: first,  an  absolute  decline  in  the  numbers  of 
English,  French,  and  Germans;  secondly,  as  a  conse- 
quence of  this  decline,  their  subjugation  by  less  civil- 
ized races  and  the  extinction  of  their  tradition ;  thirdly, 

122 


WOMEN 

a  revival  of  their  numbers  on  a  much  lower  plane  of 
civilization,  after  generations  of  selection  of  those  who 
have  neither  intelligence  nor  foresight.  If  this  result 
is  to  be  avoided,  the  present  unfortunate  selectiveness 
of  the  birth-rate  must  be  somehow  stopped. 

The  problem  is  one  which  applies  to  the  whole  West- 
ern civilization.  There  is  no  difficulty  in  discovering  a 
theoretical  solution,  but  there  is  great  difficulty  in  per- 
suading men  to  adopt  a  solution  in  practice,  because 
the  effects  to  be  feared  are  not  immediate,  and  the  sub- 
ject is  one  upon  which  people  are  not  in  the  habit  of 
using  their  reason.  If  a  rational  solution  is  ever 
adopted,  the  cause  will  probably  be  international 
rivalry.  It  is  obvious  that  if  one  state,  say  Germany, 
adopted  a  rational  means  of  dealing  with  the  matter, 
it  would  acquire  an  enormous  advantage  over  other 
states  unless  they  did  likewise.  After  the  war  it  is  pos- 
sible that  population  questions  will  attract  more  atten- 
tion than  they  did  before,  and  it  is  likely  that  they  will 
be  studied  from  the  point  of  view  of  international 
rivalry.  This  motive,  unlike  reason  and  humanity,  is 
perhaps  strong  enough  to  overcome  men's  objections  to 
a  scientific  treatment  of  the  birth-rate. 

Havelock  Ellis  suggests  the  extension  of  birth- 
control  to  the  lowest  elements  in  the  population, 
so  that  the  ignorant  and  diseased  and  feeble- 
minded will  not  breed  out  of  proportion  to  the 

123 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

rest  of  the  community.  But  birth-control  alone, 
even  when  generally  applied  inside  a  nation  in- 
stead of  being  applied  as  now  only  to  the  intel- 
ligent and  wholesome  elements,  does  not  meet  the 
international  situation,  which  is  one  where  the 
militaristic  and  autocratic  nations,  like  Germany, 
Russia,  and  Japan,  go  on  multiplying,  and  so  al- 
tering the  balance  of  power.  Two  wars  have  re- 
vealed that  a  stable  population,  like  the  French, 
no  matter  what  its  national  well-being  and  its 
courage,  is  not  in  itself  powerful  enough  to  resist 
the  invasion  of  a  military  nation  superior  in  num- 
bers. A  generally  applied  birth-control  does  not 
meet  the  actual  situation  of  an  ever-expanding 
Slav  race,  with  the  yellow  races  in  the  near  back- 
ground and  the  early  future  in  world  arrange- 
ments. We  cannot  rely  on  an  eternal  world 
peace  to  permit  us  to  reduce  the  populations  of 
the  democracies. 

If  England  becomes  a  nation  of  a  permanent, 
balanced,  static  civilization  of  forty  million  per- 
sons, that  gives  the  future  to  prolific  races,  and 
the  liberal  democratic  experiment  is  doomed.  In 
America  we  are  going  this  way  blindly.  Our 
old  stock  is  practising  birth  restriction  and  is  passv 


WOMEN 

ing  out  of  existence.  We  have  hidden  from  our- 
selves the  perils  and  ultimate  disaster  of  this  pro- 
cess by  importing  fresh  hordes  of  vital  peasants 
from  southern  and  southeastern  Europe;  but  the 
process  is  working  to  the  extinction  of  the  old 
America,  and  it  is  substituting  different  races,  of 
alien  blood  and  belief.  A  control  of  our  life  is 
being  exercised  by  other  races,  and  in  a  few  gen- 
erations we  shall  have  an  America  as  distinct 
from  Puritan  New  England  and  the  Cavalier 
South  as  Dublin  is  different  from  Manchester. 
Immigration  is  the  easy  and  fatal  solution  for  a 
lessening  stock  in  America,  but  it  is  no  answer 
for  England.  Englishmen  will  never  let  them- 
selves be  drowned  out  by  tides  of  Sicilians, 
Slovaks,  and  Russian  Jews.  The  future  of  Eng- 
land rests  on  whether  its  women  are  mothers,  and 
whether  those  mothers  and  their  children  are  well 
provided  for.  All  other  problems  of  reconstruc- 
tion are  derivative  as  compared  with  the  creation 
of  life  and  the  establishment  of  a  healthy 
and  numerous  child  population.  Lowering  the 
death-rate  by  good  milk  and  sanitation  and  hous- 
ing and  medical  care  is  only  a  partial  cure  for  a 
falling  birth-rate.  And  saying,  "Let  women 

125 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

work  in  the  factories  and  professions  and  be 
mothers  at  the  same  time"  does  not  meet  the 
fact  that  the  factory  and  the  home  are  separate 
places. 

"More  and  better  children"  is  obviously  the 
only  solution  for  a  Western  democracy  in  a  world 
where  neighboring  nations  are  not  under  demo- 
cratic control.  So  we  are  forced  back  to  some 
such  answer  as  that  of  the  feminist  movement, 
led  by  the  War  Office  and  the  Admiralty.  Do 
not  penalize  by  poverty  the  woman  who  gives 
sons  and  daughters  to  the  state;  endow  mother- 
hood. Population  is  a  community  and  state  con- 
cern. A  nationalized  motherhood  is  of  more  im- 
portance than  nationalized  railways.  The  mili- 
tary authorities  have  blazed  the  way  by  a  reck- 
less disregard  of  laissez-faire  and  conventional 
morality.  They  have  laid  down  the  principle  of 
state  guardianship  for  the  profession  of  mother- 
hood. It  now  rests  with  the  common  sense  of 
England — a  common  sense  reinforced  by  the  in- 
stinct of  self-preservation — to  refuse  to  permit 
the  great  experiment  of  the  War  Office  and  the 
Admiralty  to  die  away. 


126 


WOMEN 

BOWING  THEM   OUT 

The  women  of  England,  having  received  the 
thanks  of  a  grateful  kingdom,  are  now  about  to 
be  rushed  to  the  door  and  kicked  down-stairs. 
They  will  be  considered  unmannerly  if  they  do 
not  pick  themselves  up  from  the  door-step  and 
disappear  unostentatiously  into  the  night.  The 
process  of  accelerating  them  into  their  place  is 
already  under  way.  The  speaker's  committee 
on  the  franchise  has  reported,  with  a  careful 
evasion  of  woman  suffrage.  The  British  bar 
has  just  voted  down  the  admission  of  "duly 
qualified  women  to  the  profession"  by  an  over- 
whelming majority.  The  sober  sense  of  the 
members  came  to  voice  in  the  orator  who  was 
able  to  speak  for  "a  good  many  members  of  the 
bar  serving  with  the  colors.  They  had  the  first 
claim  to  say  to  what  extent  the  old  tradition 
which  confined  admission  to  the  bar  to  the  male 
sex  should  be  maintained.  To  take  such  a  de- 
cision in  their  absence  would  be  unjust  to  them." 

The  man  at  the  front  is  being  worked  over- 
time in  these  days.  He  has  to  stand  duty  in  wet 
trenches,  and  then  the  ghostly  projection  of  him 

127 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

is  yanked  back  to  elderly  gatherings  in  London 
to  protest  against  alterations  in  the  ancient  way 
of  doing  things. 

So  woman's  fight  for  recognition  reaches  its 
third  campaign.  In  the  days  before  the  war 
there  was  a  dead-weight  of  opposition,  made  up 
of  ignorance,  distrust  of  change,  and  sex  scorn. 
Then  came  the  need  of  woman's  help  in  five  hun- 
dred processes  of  industry,  in  medicine,  and 
organization.  If  girls  made  shells,  steered  de- 
livery-wagons, conducted  hospitals,  served  on  the 
police  force,  managed  business,  and  adjusted  in- 
dustrial disputes,  there  was  little  cogency  in  say- 
ing that  women  could  not  do  man's  work.  As 
one  of  the  women  who  helped  to  pull  England 
through  said :  "Before  the  war  women  were  only 
the  mothers  of  men.  Now  they  had  risen  to  the 
dizzy  heights  of  the  makers  of  machine-guns." 
The  tide  was  with  them,  and  every  wind  that  blew 
filled  their  sails. 

Now  comes  the  third  and  bitterest  phase  of  the 
long  fight.  "Thank  you  kindly,  but  it  is  time  for 
you  to  go."  Bad  years  are  ahead  for  the  women 
of  England.  But  let  no  one  worry  unduly. 
They  have  come  to  stay,  and  they  will  obtain  the 

128 


WOMEN 

vote.  During  the  transition  period,  when  the 
shell  factories  are  becoming  industrial  plants, 
when  the  returning  soldiers  will  have  first  call  on 
the  jobs,  when  the  men's  trade-unions  are  making 
up  their  minds  whether  women  are  their  allies  or 
their  enemies,  and  when  Parliament  is  deciding 
whether  its  ancient,  solitary  reign  will  be  mo- 
lested by  these  energetic  new-comers,  the  female 
semi-skilled  workers  will  have  a  severe  experi- 
ence. The  unskilled  workers  will  have  the  same 
sordid  experience  they  have  always  had.  This 
period  of  transition  may  extend  through  several 
years.  Gradually  the  creation  of  new  indus- 
tries, making  use  of  the  new  automatic  machinery 
introduced  under  war  pressure,  will  again  offer 
jobs  to  the  demobilized  women.  Winning  the 
suffrage,  women  will  have  the  power  to  enforce 
their  demands  for  proper  payment,  and  as  voters 
they  will  suddenly  become  welcome  additions  to 
the  male  trade-unions,  and  together  they  will  con- 
tinue the  fight  for  a  high  standard  of  living  for 
both  men  and  women. 

About  eight  hundred  thousand  women  have 
recently  entered  industry,  transport,  commerce, 
government  employment,  and  agriculture.  Five 

129 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

hundred  thousand  of  these  are  busy  in  munition- 
making.  This  increase  came  from  five  classes: 
first,  more  than  one  hundred  thousand  came  from 
domestic  servants ;  second,  from  the  ranks  of  out- 
door workers  and  small  employers;  third,  from 
women  remaining  in  industry  after  marriage  and 
to  a  later  age,  and  girls  fresh  from  school ;  fourth, 
married  women,  widows,  former  dependents, 
returning  to  employment;  fifth,  middle-class 
women,  society  women,  entering  industry  and 
commerce. 

Many  of  these  women  will  return  to  the  home 
at  the  close  of  the  war,  but  a  large  percentage 
have  come  to  stay.  All  these  have  replaced  the 
man  in  semi-skilled  and  unskilled  work,  one 
woman  for  one  man.  This  is  direct  substitution. 
Indirect  substitution  is  found  when  woman  takes 
the  place  of  an  unskilled  or  a  semi-skilled  man 
who  in  turn  takes  the  place  of  a  fully  skilled  man. 
Group  substitution  is  when  a  group  of  women 
takes  the  place  of  a  smaller  group  of  men,  and 
substitution  by  rearrangement  when  women,  plus 
automatic  machinery,  do  work  previously  requir- 
ing skilled  workers.  The  introduction  of  women 

130 


WOMEN 

by  these  methods  of  substitution  is  virtually  gen- 
eral throughout  the  trades. 

In  mechanical  engineering,  in  "controlled" 
firms,  the  money  wages  received  on  piece-work 
are  far  above  those  earned  by  women  before  the 
war.  Ten  dollars  a  week  is  rather  common,  and 
instances  of  thirteen  dollar  a  week  day-rates  are 
known.  By  a  series  of  orders  a  minimum  wage 
of  a  pound  a  week  for  forty-eight  hours  has 
gradually  been  established. 

In  the  cotton  trade,  boot-and-shoe  industry, 
bleaching  and  dyeing,  woolen  and  worsted,  china 
and  earthenware  industries,  and  tailoring,  wages 
have  been  much  bettered  during  the  war. 

The  same  care  in  substitution  has  not  been 
made  in  agriculture,  in  biscuit  and  bread,  rubber 
works,  confectionery  and  sweets.  The  woman's 
wage  here  has  tended  to  increase  during  the  war, 
but  probably  not  to  equal  the  man's  rate. 

Summing  up,  the  substitution  of  women  for 
men  has  increased  the  money  wage  for  women. 
In  trades  with  definite  agreements  the  women's 
rates  approximate  the  men's.  Where  there  has 
been  no  agreement,  the  women's  wage  has  been 

131 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

better  than  before  the  war,  but  is  still  far  too  low. 

Of  women  in  women's  work,  in  the  fuse  and 
powder  trades,  as  the  result  of  arbitration,  a  gain 
has  been  made.'  In  electrical  engineering  and 
telephone  work,  except  for  certain  cases,  the  rate 
has  changed  but  little.  Why  has  woman  won  a 
decided  advance  in  mechanical  engineering  and 
not  in  electrical  engineering?  The  answer  is  that 
she  is  organized  in  mechanical  engineering. 
Skilled  groups  of  women  workers  in  the  power- 
machine  trade  have  won  real  advances.  In  sugar 
confectionery,  tailoring,  and  shirt-making  a  fair 
advance  has  been  made.  But  all  three  trades  are 
closely  related  to  war  work.  Where  the  woman's 
trade  organization  has  been  strong  she  has  ob- 
tained a  decided  rise  in  wages,  whether  she  has 
been  doing  women's  work  or  substitution  work 
in  men's  jobs.  But  the  bulk  of  women's  indus- 
tries have  not  kept  step  with  the  increased  cost  of 
living,  nor  has  substitution  for  men  necessarily 
obtained  the  man's  full  rate.  Munition-workers 
have  obtained  a  fair  minimum  promised  them  by 
the  Government  exactly  in  so  far  as  their  organ- 
izations have  enforced  the  promise. 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  it  is  possible  at  any  time 
132 


WOMEN 

to  obtain  a  decided  advance  in  women's  wages,  in- 
cluding sweated  industries.  This  advance  will 
be  obtained  when,  and  not  until  when,  the  trade- 
union  movement  enforces  it.  The  trade-union 
movement  will  probably  not  enforce  it  until 
women  have  the  vote. 

For  two  and  a  half  years  women  industrial 
workers  as  a  class  have  had  more  money  than 
ever  before.  What  has  been  done  with  it?  It 
has  gone  into  milk  for  the  children,  meat  for  a 
few  meals  a  week  instead  of  once  a  week,  heat  in 
the  rooms,  a  clean  blouse  for  the  little  girl,  a  pic- 
ture-show for  all  the  children.  It  has  gone  into 
war  savings.  It  has  purchased  status,  that  most 
precious  of  all  things.  Money  buys  self-respect 
and  a  sense  of  well-being.  For  the  first  time  in 
the  life  of  many  of  these  women  they  have  not 
been  obliged  to  go  under-nourished,  a  little 
pinched,  a  little  chilly,  dressed  in  a  garb  that 
stamps  them  of  the  lower  class.  They  have  put 
off  the  faded  shawl,  the  dreary  blouse,  the  dis- 
colored straw  hat,  the  boots  with  sagging  heels, 
and  the  heavy-threaded  stockings,  thick  at  the 
ankles.  Is  it  anything  but  good  that  some  of 
them  have  rented  a  piano  for  the  home,  and  now 

133 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

have  a  bit  of  fun  and  music  in  crowded  rooms  ?  I 
have  a  friend  who  has  oversight  of  some  thou- 
sands of  these  workers.  He  told  me  of  a  girl 
who  bought  three  suits  of  silk  underwear  at 
thirty-seven  shillings  a  suit.  It  is  nice  to  feel 
well-dressed  from  the  skin  out,  when  all  the  days 
of  one's  youth  one  has  been  in  the  uniform  of  the 
poor. 

But  he  told  me  another  thing.  When  one  of 
the  workers  died  of  consumption,  he  sold  223 
tickets  at  sixpence,  a  shilling,  and  half  a  crown 
each  among  the  other  workers  for  the  widow  and 
two  children.  Every  week  has  its  benefit 
for  some  family  of  the  shop.  Every  week,  with 
an  open  hand,  the  workers  pay  out  their  money 
for  concert  or  theatrical  entertainment  to  make  a 
fund  for  people  in  trouble.  For  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  these  women  the  years  of  war  have 
brought  the  first  free  spending  money  they 
have  ever  known,  and  there  is  something  appeal- 
ing, if  we  knew  it,  in  the  history  of  every  shilling 
they  have  spent. 

The  war  has  introduced  grave  dangers  to  the 
health  of  women  by  night  work;  overtime;  hot 
atmospheric  conditions  such  as  occur  in  certain 

184 


WOMEN 

processes  in  woolen  textile;  severe  muscular  ac- 
tion, as  in  the  lifting  of  heavy  weights;  and  by 
poisoning,  as  in  some  of  the  processes  in  shell- 
filling.  In  munition  work  there  has  been  a  nerv- 
ous strain  connected  with  certain  of  the  proc- 
esses and  the  dangers  of  fire  and  explosion.  In 
addition,  a  few  factories  are  in  Zeppelin  areas, 
and  on  a  telephone  warning  all  lights  go  out,  and 
the  women  lie  flat  on  the  floor  till  the  danger  is 
past.  When  the  word  comes  to  them  to  rise,  one 
or  two  in  a  department  are  found  in  a  faint. 

To  offset  this,  the  Government  has  made  the 
most  determined  effort  in  the  history  of  any  pub- 
lic institution  to  enforce  proper  conditions  of 
work,  to  fight  against  overtime,  to  establish  clean- 
liness, sanitation,  and  nourishment.  The  wel- 
fare department,  under  the  ministry  of  muni- 
tions, conducted  by  perhaps  the  best  known  so- 
cial worker  in  the  English-speaking  world,  See- 
bohm  Rowntree,  has  literally  labored  day  and 
night  to  guard  the  girls  and  women  of  Great 
Britain.  It  has  sought  to  preserve  five  hundred 
thousand  women  from  results  of  war  pressure 
which  would  have  been  disastrous.  As  a  peace 
measure,  welfare  work  is  still  an  open  question 

135 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

when  conducted  by  private  enterprise  unless  it 
is  clearly  an  addition  to  a  living  wage  and  not  a 
clever  substitute  for  it.  But  as  a  government 
measure  in  a  time  of  the  severest  crisis  in  the 
history  of  the  world  it  deserves  nothing  but 
praise. 

Of  the  eight  hundred  thousand  women  who 
have  transferred  themselves  into  new  work,  how 
many  are  going  to  stay?  No  one  knows.  An 
organization  to  combine  women  in  certain  trades 
sent  out  recently  a  form  of  questions  with  the  in- 
quiry, "Do  you  wish  after  the  war  to  return  to 
your  former  work  or  to  stay  in  what  you  are  do- 
ing now?"  Of  three  thousand  answers,  twenty- 
five  hundred  replied  that  they  wished  to  remain 
in  the  new  work.  That  is,  five  sixths.  On  the 
other  hand,  an  investigator  who  has  made  a  study 
of  social  conditions  among  the  Coventry  workers 
tells  me  that  the  majority  of  the  women  say  they 
will  leave  industry  and  take  up  home  life  after 
the  war.  Some  of  them  are  married  women  who 
are  now  making  the  family  income  while  the  hus- 
band is  at  the  front.  Others  are  upper-class 
women  who  are  "filling  in"  from  patriotic  mo- 
tives for  the  duration  of  the  war  only.  Others 

136 


WOMEN 

are  girls  with  their  "boys"  at  the  front.  The 
young  man  will  return  from  the  war  "fed  up" 
with  the  life  of  a  "stag  camp,"  keenly  desirous 
of  a  home  and  a  family.  Each  locality,  then,  has 
to  be  studied,  for  each  offers  its  own  set  of  con- 
ditions. But  out  of  the  melee  we  can  see  several 
hundred  thousand  women,  new-comers  in  the 
trades  of  men,  remaining.  We  must  remember 
that  the  old  work  no  longer  is  open  to  them  to 
the  same  extent  as  in  the  days  before  the  war. 
It  is  probable  that  some  of  the  luxury  trades  have 
ceased  forever.  Common  sense,  taxation,  and 
the  organized  state  will  probably  not  permit  the 
old-time  expenditure  on  millinery,  ball-dresses, 
and  fancy  sweets.  Domestic  service  will  not 
again  suck  up  one  million  and  three  quarters 
women.  The  house  that  kept  twenty-four  serv- 
ants will  keep  ten,  the  family  that  had  three  will 
"do"  with  one.  There  is  no  direction  for  women 
to  go  but  forward. 

Will  there  be  work  for  them?  No  one  knows. 
Coventry  has  already  received  orders  for  1918, 
and  it  is  probable  that  industry  there  will  run  on 
at  full  capacity  for  a  year  or  two  at  least  after 
the  war.  In  Sheffield  the  employers  plan  a 

137 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

swift  conversion  to  the  trades  of  peace.  The 
great  steel  firms  anticipate  an  undiminished  de- 
mand for  their  produce.  What  made  shells  will 
be  turned  into  railway  supplies,  for  instance. 
Already  they  have  orders  that  guarantee  the  im- 
mediate future — orders  from  Great  Britain  and 
Russia.  They  state  that  they  will  continue  the 
women  at  work  and  will  at  the  same  time  fit  in 
the  men.  But  such  a  report  is  unusual. 

There  are  men's  trade-unions,  as  in  the  in- 
stance of  the  transport-workers,  who  stood  hy  the 
job  until  the  women  received  the  same  rate  of 
pay  that  they  possessed.  One  or  two  other 
men's  unions  have  promised  to  make  the  same 
fight  after  the  war  for  the  women.  But  these 
instances  of  rendering  the  work  of  reconstruction 
easy  are  unique,  and  the  women  must  probably 
make  their  own  fight,  unaided  by  the  Govern- 
ment, by  the  men's  trade-unions,  and  by  the  em- 
ployers. Unorganized  and  unenfranchised,  they 
will  be  the  center  of  unrest  and  suffering,  a  run- 
ning sore  in  industry,  imperiling  the  standard  of 
living  established  by  the  men's  organizations, 
scabbing  wages,  and  weakening  the  trade-union 
movement.  With  votes  and  wide-spread  unions, 

138 


WOMEN 

they  would  become  a  vital  element  in  the  emanci- 
pation. 

What  women  face  at  the  end  of  the  war  is  the 
chaos  into  which  they  fell  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war,  when  over  a  million  and  a  half  of  em- 
ployed women  were  thrown  out  of  work  or  placed 
on  short  time.  With  the  coming  of  peace  the 
semi-skilled  women  will  be  demobilized  from  the 
munitions  factories  and  dumped  upon  the  labor 
market.  At  the  same  time  two  and  a  half  mil- 
lion men  will  leave  war  trades  and  flood  the  labor 
market.  And  the  army  will  be  demobilized. 
Much  of  the  new  machinery  created  for  war  needs 
will  be  available  for  the  industries  of  peace;  but 
the  period  of  transition  will  be  long,  because  the 
plant  must  be  adjusted  to  the  new  requirements, 
markets  for  the  product  developed,  and  capital 
found.  It  may  be  two  years,  it  may  be  five 
years,  before  what  has  been  a  shell  factory  be- 
comes an  engineering  plant,  turning  out  an  equal 
volume  of  production.  During  the  time  in  which 
the  business  is  finding  itself  the  women  workers 
are  going  to  be  the  last  class  in  the  labor  market 
to  be  considered.  The  old  skilled,  semi-skilled, 
and  unskilled  workers  returning  from  the  army, 

139 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

the  men  munition-workers,  the  partly  wounded 
soldiers,  will  have  prior  consideration.  They 
will  be  safeguarded  by  a  carefully  wrought 
scheme  of  demobilization,  by  a  properly  adjusted 
unemployment  insurance,  by  a  pension  system. 
It  rests  with  the  women,  by  agitation  and  pres- 
sure, to  establish  for  themselves  a  standard  of 
living,  and  to  hold  fast  to  the  undoubted  immense 
gains  they  have  made  during  the  war. 

The  task  is  probably  not  one  primarily  of 
creating  work.  The  rebuilding  of  Belgium  and 
northern  France,  the  deterioration  of  plant  in 
Great  Britain,  the  closer  industrial  association  of 
England  with  her  colonies,  the  needs  of  Russia 
— all  these  give  promise  of  a  stimulated  market 
for  British  products.  The  task  is  one  of  organ- 
ization, devising  a  machinery  for  connecting  the 
worker  with  the  job,  safeguarding  unemploy- 
ment, and  maintaining  the  standard  of  living. 
The  new  minister  of  labor  is  arranging  to  breathe 
life  into  the  sleepy  institution  of  labor  exchanges, 
and  to  add  eight  hundred  to  the  number.  The 
Government  has  offered  the  extension  of  com- 
pulsory unemployment  insurance.  This  meets 
only  the  needs  of  some  of  the  war  workers  and 

140 


WOMEN 

meets  those  needs  only  in  part.  Seven  shillings 
a  week  amounts  to  poor  relief,  and  does  not  re- 
construct the  industrial  situation  of  the  total 
group. 

Certain  of  the  women  leaders  have  suggested 
a  wide-spread  unemployment  insurance  which 
shall  preserve  the  standard  of  living;  an  analysis 
of  the  market  as  to  where  workers  will  be  re- 
quired, with  the  distribution  of  such  informa- 
tion through  trade-unions  and  employment  ex- 
changes ;  and  a  supply  of  blank  forms  to  be  filled 
up  by  the  workers  desiring  future  employment; 
due  notice  of  dismissal  to  be  given  by  "con- 
trolled" establishments,  and  return  railway  fares 
to  be  paid  to  those  workers  who  have  come  from 
a  distance;  and  the  use  of  government  factories 
for  a  continuing  national  work.  Further,  they 
have  suggested  a  system  of  training  in  new  trades 
for  women  displaced  from  work.  Such  is  the  im- 
mediate program. 

But  back  of  it  lies  a  deeper  need.  The  sug- 
gestion has  been  made  for  a  minimum  wage. 
This  could  well  be  made  part  of  the  general  pol- 
icy, which  was  already  beginning  to  be  formu- 
lated before  the  war  for  a  minimum  wage  in  agri- 

141 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

culture  and  the  underpaid  men's  trades.  Ex- 
perts had  agreed  before  the  war  that  the  primary 
condition  to  be  met  was  that,  with  the  least  pos- 
sible delay,  all  workers  of  normal  ability  should 
receive  as  an  absolute  minimum  a  reasonable  liv- 
ing wage.  By  this  is  meant  a  wage  which  will 
enable  an  adult  man  to  maintain  a  family  of  nor- 
mal size  in  a  state  of  physical  efficiency,  and 
which  will  allow  a  margin  for  recreation.  With 
the  prices  of  July,  1914,  this  was  twenty-seven 
shillings  a  week,  allowing  five  shillings  for  rent. 
With  present  prices  this  has  become  thirty-six 
shillings.  But  to  establish  a  minimum  of  thirty- 
six  shillings  a  week  at  one  stroke  is  impracticable ; 
so  the  present  demand  is  for  a  minimum  of  thirty 
shillings.  The  minimum  suggested  for  a  woman 
was  sixteen  shillings  before  the  war.  It  is  now  a 
pound  a  week  (the  rate  gradually  established  by 
the  Government  in  munition  factories).  Some 
of  the  experts  ruled  out  the  suggestion  that  a 
woman  should  be  paid  as  a  minimum  enough  to 
maintain  a  family.  They  argued  that  minimum 
wages  should  be  arranged  with  a  view  to  normal 
conditions,  and  though  there  are  many  excep- 
tions, the  normal  condition  is  for  man  to  main- 


WOMEN 

tain  a  family  and  for  a  woman  not  to  do  so. 
This  contention  will  of  course  be  disputed  by 
many  feminists  on  the  showing  of  the  facts.  But 
what  is  clear  in  the  matter  is  that  there  is  a  rapidly 
increasing  tendency  toward  a  minimum  wage, 
and  that  a  minimum-wage  act  must  include 
women. 

Other  measures  of  reconstruction  are  being 
pressed  by  the  leaders  of  working-women.  In- 
vestigation is  needed  as  to  what  employments 
are  hurtful  to  a  woman's  organism.  Reform 
of  the  factory  laws  is  included  in  the  changes 
that  are  now  seen  to  be  required.  The  eight- 
hour  day  must  be  enforced.  President  Wilson 
by  his  decision  in  the  railway  strike  has  enforced 
a  principle  to  which  the  trade-unions  all  over  the 
world  must  respond.  Women  officials  are  re- 
quired in  greatly  increased  numbers  to  safeguard 
the  position  of  women  in  industry.  Not  only 
must  the  number  of  women  factory  inspectors  be 
increased,  but  it  may  prove  to  be  necessary  that 
members  of  the  new  profession  of  welfare  work- 
ers in  factories  shall  be  appointed  by  the  state 
rather  than  paid  for  by  the  employer,  and  the  new 
labor  ministry  must  have  among  its  under-secre- 

143 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

taries  a  representation  of  women.  The  trade- 
unions  must  grant  admission  to  women  in  return 
for  monetary  contributions,  and  the  women  must 
have  a  measure  of  control  of  the  machinery  of  the 
union.  The  children  who  by  means  of  a  special 
certificate  have  leaked  into  industry  must  be  re- 
turned to  school.  This  at  one  sweep  would  re- 
lieve the  labor  market  of  one  hundred  and  eighty 
thousand  persons  in  industry  and  agriculture. 
It  is  probable  that  all  these  reforms  are  dependent 
on  the  winning  of  the  suffrage. 

DISORGANIZATION 

The  chaos  out  of  which  woman's  work  is 
slowly  emerging  will  be  revealed  by  a  modern 
instance  better  than  by  tons  of  generalization. 
I  have  asked  a  young  woman  of  excellent  middle- 
class  family,  now  financially  pinched,  to  make  a 
chart  of  her  recent  life-history.  Better  than  any 
"wail"  it  shows  the  cul-de-sac  of  the  old  "genteel" 
occupations.  It  explains  why  she  has  turned  to 
clerical  work  in  the  War  Office,  paying  a  salary 
of  twenty-seven  shillings  a  week.  It  shows  why 
she  will  not  return  to  the  old  job  after  the  war. 
Like  a  few  hundred  thousand  other  women,  she 

144 


WOMEN 

has  entered  organized  life  determined  to  stay. 
Employers,  the  state,  and  trade-unions  must 
reckon  with  her.  Her  chapter  of  dreary  episode 
is  followed  by  a  chapter  in  sharp  contrast  on  the 
policewomen,  who  have  inserted  organization 
into  a  muddled  community.  The  two  chapters 
together  are  the  concrete  demonstration  of  the 
economic  and  social  disturbance  which  has  pre- 
cipitated women  into  the  central  activities  of  the 
community. 

My  friend's  position  was  that  of  "lady  help," 
the  kind  of  work  which  is  "woman's  work,"  and 
has  the  approval  of  anti-feminists  and  other  re- 
actionary theorists.  I  have  preserved  her  ar- 
rangement and  phrasing. 


145 


COMPANION  HELP  IN  BOARDING-HOUSE  AT 
ST.  LEONARDS 

£20  ($100)  salary  a  year. 
1  shilling,  weekly  laundry. 
Tips,  gloves,  flowers,  or  sweets. 

6:30  A.M.     Rise. 

7:00  Dust  dining-room  and  drawing-room,  water  and  wash 

all  plants,  arrange  flower-vases  and  put  out  all  des- 
sert, make  servants'  and  own  bed,  tidy  own  bedroom. 

9:00  Pour  out  all  coffee  and  tea  and  cocoa,  help  with  serv- 

ing breakfast. 

10  KK)  Make    all    single    beds,   help   maid   with   double    ones 

(about  twenty-two  bedrooms,  two  houses  adjoining). 
Dust  all  bedrooms,  superintend  maid  with  all  up- 
stairs work  and  turning  out  of  rooms,  give  out  all 
linen,  see  to  sorting  same. 

12:00     M.    Mend  all  torn  linen,  interview  guests  for  rooms. 

1:00  P.M.     Help   serve  lunch,  give  out  and  check  all  beer   and 
stout  sold. 

2:00  till  4:00.     Free  to  go  out  or  rest. 

4:00  Cut  up   all  cakes  for  tea,  and  hand  round  tea  with 

maid  in  drawing-room. 

5:30  Mending. 

6:30  Time  allowed  myself  to  change  for  dinner. 

7KX)  Serve  sonp,  vegetables,  and  sweets. 

8:00  Entertain  in  drawing-room,  singing  and  accompanying 

songs,  arrange  card-tables,  talk  to  gentlemen  in 
smoking-room. 

11.00 


146 


WOMEN 


LADY  HELP  AT  RECTORY,  WITH  SIX  IN  FAMILY 
AND  NO  SERVANT 

£18  ($90)  salary  a  year. 
1  shilling,  laundry  weekly. 

6:00  A.M.     Rise. 

6:30  Clean  big  kitchen  range,  clean  two  sitting-room  grates, 

sweep  two  big  rooms,  and  dust. 

9:00  Cook  breakfast  (hot),  lay  cloth,  serve,  clear  away. 

10:00  Make  beds  with  lady,  empty  toilets,  sweep  and  dust 

four  bedrooms. 

11:00  Cook  and  prepare  hot  lunch,  wash  all  vegetables,  just 

dug  out  of  garden,  clean  windows  inside  which 
needed  doing,  clean  silver  and  brass  in  sitting-rooms, 
clean  door-step  every  other  day. 

12:00     M.    Tidy  up  kitchen  before  lunch,  wash  over  kitchen  with 
mop,  also  scullery  (stone  floors),  wash  hearth. 


P.M.  Lay  lunch  and  serve. 

1  :30  Clear  lunch  away  and  wash  up,  lady  helping  to  dry  up. 

2:15  Time  allowed  to  tidy  up  and  have  rest. 

3:45  Get  tea  for  four,  clear  away,  and  wash  up. 

6:00  Bathe  and  put  little  boy  to  bed,  get  supper  for  same 
and  his  little  brother. 

7:00  Prepare  hot  supper  for  four. 

8:00  Serve  supper,  clear  away,  and  wash  up. 

9:00  Put  hot  bottles  in  four  bedrooms. 

9:30  Finished  work;  could  go  to  bed  if  I  liked. 


147 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 


LADY  HELP  AT  HOUSE,  WHERE  NO  SERVANT  IS  KEPT 

Five  in  family,  parents,  one  little  girl  of  five,  twins  ten  weeks  old, 

in  delicate  health. 
£12  ($60)  salary  a  year. 

6:30  A.M.    Rise. 

7:00  Make  and  take  up  early  tea  to  bedroom,  dress  little 

girL 

8:30  Sweep  dining-room,  dust,  and  lay  cloth. 

9:00  Look  after  twins  through  breakfast,  have  mine  as  best 

could,  also  attend  little  girl. 

10:00  Help  both  twins  get  ready,  make  beds,  dust  and  sweep 

four  bedrooms,  empty  toilets,  tidy  bathroom,  take  all 
three  children  out,  babies  hi  pram  (perambulator). 

12:30  P.M.    Bring  children  home,  make  bottles,  lay  luncheon  on 
cloth. 

1:00  Look  after  three  children  at  lunch. 

3:00  Take  three  children  out,  have  entire  charge  of  three. 

4KK)  Get  tea,  make  bottles,  take  children  out  for  short  time, 

do  shopping. 

6:00  Put  babies  and  little  girl  to  bed,  give  them  bottles. 

7:00  Get  supper  and  lay  cloth,  clear  away  and  wash  up, 

listen  to  babies  the  rest  of  the  evening,  make  their 
bottles. 

11 KX)  Could  go  to  bed.    Had  one  twin  in  my  room  all  night, 

had  to  attend  to  it  and  make  bottles  every  two  hours 
through  the  night;  baby  slept  very  badly. 


148 


WOMEN 

LADY  HELP  AT  PRIVATE  HOUSE  AT  BLACKHEATH, 

WITH  PARENTS  AND  TWO  CHILDREN, 

NO  SERVANTS 

£20  ($100)  salary  a  year. 
6:00  A.M.     Rise. 

6:30  Take  up  early  morning  tea,  sweep  dining-room  and 

hall,  clean  kitchen,  light  fire,  clean  grate,  cook  hot 
breakfast,  light  copper  on  Mondays,  and  fill  same. 

8:30  Serve  breakfast. 

9:30  Clear  breakfast  and  wash  up. 

10:00  Empty  toilets,  dust  stairs  and  landing  and  bath-room, 

sweep  and  dust  four  bedrooms,  dust  drawing-room. 

11:00  Take  children  out  to  do  shopping. 

12:00     M.     Prepare  and  cook  hot  lunch,  make  puddings  for  hot 
supper. 

1:00  P.M.    Serve  lunch,  lay  cloth,  clear  away,  wash  up,  and  make 
tea. 

3:00  Time  allowed  to  tidy  and  wash  myself. 

3:45  Get  tea,  clear  away  and  wash  up,  ironing  to  be  done. 

6:00  Take  children  for  walk,  get  their  supper. 

7:30  Cook  supper,  lay  cloth,  and  wash  up. 

9:00  Work  finished,  go  to  bed. 


149 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

LADY  HELP  AT  HOTEL  IN  LONDON 

£26  ($130)   salary  a  year. 
1  shilling,  laundry  weekly. 

7:00  A.M.     Rise. 

7:30  Dust    dining-room,    drawing-room    and    hall,    see    to 

flower-vases,  help  maid  carry  up  all  breakfasts  from 
basement  to  dining-room,  varying  in  number,  clear  in 
between,  and  keep  tables  quite  tidy  and  freshly  laid. 

10:30  Go  up-stairs  with  maid,  make  all  beds  by  myself,  fill 

jugs,  tidy  bathroom,  dust  and  sweep  ten  bedrooms. 

12:20  P.M.    Tidy  for  lunch,  help  maid  lay  luncheon  cloth,  carry  up 
some  trays. 

1:00  P.M.    Wait  on  guests  at  lunch. 

2:00  Clear  away  lunch  and  wash  silver,  knives,  and  glass. 

3:00  Mend  torn  linen,  answer  front  door-bell,  shopping. 

4:00  Lay  and  get  tea,  usually  two  meals  of  tea  at  different 

times,  then  mend  linen  until  six  o'clock. 

6:30  Help  maid  lay  dinner-cloth. 

7  KM)  Bring  each  separate  course  from  kitchen  up-stairs,  wait 

on  guests  in  dining-room. 

8:00  Wash  up  silver,  knives,  and  glass. 

8:45  Finished;  go  home. 


150 


WOMEN 

LADY  HELP  AT  LADIES'  HOSTEL  FOR  WAR  WORKERS, 
DAILY  COOK  KEPT 

£18  ($90)  salary  a  year. 

6:00  A.M.     Rise. 

6:30  Fill  big  tea  oven,  make  ready  morning  tea,  lay  break- 

fast for  eighteen,  cut  up  four  plates  of  bread  and 
butter. 

7:30  First  breakfast  for  seven. 

8:30  Rest,  have   breakfast,  serve  and  wait  on  every   one, 

hand  cups  round. 

9:30  Empty   all  toilets,  fill  all  jugs   in  fifteen   bedrooms, 

cubicles   mostly,    sweep    and   dust   bedrooms,   sweep 
stairs  (four  flights). 

12.00  M.    Lay  luncheon-cloths. 

1:00  P.M.    Serve  luncheon  and  wait  on  twenty  people. 

2:00  Clear  away  luncheon. 

3:00  Wash  up  silver,  glass,  and  knives. 

3:20  Time  allowed  for  rest  and  to  tidy  myself. 

4:00  Get  tea  for  seven  people. 

5 :30  Wash  up  tea-things. 

6:00  Lay  cloth  for  twenty  for  evening  meal;  meal  lasts  till 

9  P.M. 

9:00  Wash  up. 

10:00  Go  to  bed. 


151 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 


LADY  WAITRESS  AT  ARMY  PAY  OFFICERS'  MESS 

Ten  shillings  salary  a  week.     Had  to  pay  four  shillings  a  week  for 
bedroom  out  of  it;  only  to  work  from  Monday  to  Friday. 

9  KX)  A.M.  Help  the  cook  prepare  all  puddings,  rub  bread-crumbs, 
chop  suet,  etc.,  peel  all  vegetables,  three  or  four  dif- 
ferent sorts. 

11:30  Put  up  several  big  hospital  tables,  arrange  all  chairs, 

etc.,  carry  down  everything  for  cloth  from  kitchen 
down  a  yard,  with  no  protection  from  rain  or  snow, 
to  a  hall  let  for  the  purpose. 

1:00  P.M.  Carry  down  all  courses  for  hot  lunch,  clear  away  every- 
thing, back  again  to  kitchen,  wait  on  officers  at  lunch. 

3:00  Sweep  hall  and  cloak-room,  remove  everything  from 

hall,  take  down  tables,  sweep  kitchen  and  passage, 
help  cook  with  all  the  washing  up. 

6. -00  Usually  finished;  pay  breaks. 


152 


WOMEN 


TEMPORARY  HELP  AT  A  LODGING-HOUSE  AT 
BRIGHTON,  WHERE  MAID  IS  KEPT 

Seven  shillings  sixpence  ($1.80)  weekly  and  tips. 
6:30  A.M.     Rise. 

7:00  Take  up  early  tea  for  five  people,  hot  water  to  carry 

up  for  seven  or  eight,  sweep  two  big  sitting-rooms, 
and  dust,  lay  breakfast-cloths  in  both  rooms  (differ- 
ent floors). 

9:00  Take  up  breakfast  for  seven  people  in  one  room  and 

ten  in  the  other.     Get  breakfast  for  staff  and  take  in. 

10:00  Clear  away  breakfasts,  make  beds  with  lady,  empty  all 

toilets,  sweep  and  dust  seven  or  eight  bedrooms. 

12:15  P.M.    Lay  cloths  in  both  sitting-rooms,  carry  up  lunch,  clear 
away  in  between. 

2:00  Wash  up  silver,  knives,  and  glass. 

3:00  Time  allowed  to  wash  and  tidy. 

3:45  Get  tea  for  both  sitting-rooms,  also  staff's  tea,  wash  up, 

and  clear  away. 

6:00  Take  up  hot  water  to  bedrooms,  turn  down  all  beds, 

empty  toilets,  and  fill  jugs. 

7:00  Lay  cloths  for  supper,  clear  away,  and  wash  up  silver 

knives  and  forks. 

10:00  Finished;  go  to  bed. 

Seven   shilling   and   sixpence,   and   "finished;   go  to  bed" — the 
Woman's  Movement  is  in  those  words. 


153 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 


Long  before  the  war  the  women  had  proved 
their  case,  but  the  door  remained  bolted.  It  was 
the  war  that  broke  down  the  door,  and  let  a  rush 
of  women  through  into  industries  and  profes- 
sions. In  a  few  months  they  altered  the  con- 
sciousness of  England  and  won  their  spiritual 
freedom.  The  vote,  industrial  equality,  control 
of  their  life,  will  inevitably  follow.  There  are 
five  hundred  thousand  of  them  making  shells. 
An  entire  military  hospital  has  been  placed  in 
their  control  and  under  their  exclusive  manage- 
ment— doctors,  surgeons,  orderlies,  messengers, 
superintendents.  That  was  done  by  the  War  Of- 
fice, which  has  never  been  a  rash  or  radical  innova- 
tor in  England.  The  War  Office  is  now  issuing 
requests  for  women  doctors.  It  finds  them  as 
steady  in  emergency,  as  delicate  in  nice  manip- 
ulation, as  their  brothers.  The  old  cant  about 
physiological  barriers  has  been  broken  down  by 
the  pressure  of  a  million  casualties.  Women  are 
driving  heavy  trucks,  running  elevators  and 
trams,  even  managing  places  of  business,  includ- 
ing a  bank. 

154 


WOMEN 

As  yet  it  is  in  large  part  the  same  millions  of 
women  who  were  earning  wages  before  the  war 
that  have  taken  possession  of  the  new  activities. 
Probably  not  more  than  five  hundred  thousand 
women  have  stepped  over  from  idleness  into  the 
day's  work.  But  half  a  million  is  a  large  in- 
crease, and  that  half -million  are  only  the  van- 
guard of  the  army  that  will  be  conscripted  by 
England's  need  of  every  adult  for  increased  pro- 
duction. The  significance  of  the  change  does  not 
lie  as  yet  in  the  number  of  previously  unem- 
ployed women  who  have  entered  wage-earning 
occupations.  The  significance  lies  in  the  new 
professions  and  the  processes  of  industry  which 
they  have  taken  over.  It  lies  in  the  work  once 
closed  to  them,  which  is  now  opened  for  all  time. 
A  measure  of  freedom  has  been  won  that  never 
existed  before.  Their  right  to  play  a  part  in  the 
industrial  and  professional  world  had  been  chal- 
lenged. Their  presence  in  the  modern  economic 
world  had  been  resented.  Inside  of  two  years 
woman  has  ceased  to  be  a  question,  and  has 
become  an  accepted  fact. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  think  that  the  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  women  who  are  helping  to  carry  on 

155 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

industry  while  the  young  men  fight  were  or- 
ganized and  engineered  by  new-comers,  that  a 
spontaneous  uprising  took  place.  The  women 
who  led  the  new  movement  into  hospitals,  muni- 
tions, the  tram-cars,  and  the  police  were  the 
seasoned  executive  women  who  had  long  been 
successful  wage-earning  workers  in  nursing  and 
school  teaching,  women  who  had  long  fought  for 
social  reform  in  labor  conditions,  housing,  and 
the  care  of  children.  The  amazing  alteration 
in  the  economic  position  of  women  in  England  is 
not  the  work  of  amateurs.  It  is  the  sudden 
ripening  of  an  immensely  laborious,  painfully 
slow  growth. 

Opponents  of  the  woman's  movement  have 
watched  with  a  keen  eye  for  a  disintegration  of 
the  home  resulting  from  the  entrance  of  numbers 
of  "home"  women  into  munition  factories.  Neg- 
lected children,  shoddily  dressed  and  poorly  fed, 
were  what  they  feared  to  find.  The  showing  has 
been  all  the  other  way.  The  reports  from  Wool- 
wich, for  instance,  show  that  the  school-children 
are  better  nourished  and  better  clothed  than  irj 
the  days  when  the  mother  was  a  hack  in  the  homt- 
over  a  wash-tub.  A  wage  to  a  mother  of  £2.10 

156 


WOMEN 

has  not  wrecked  the  British  lower-class  house- 
hold, but  has  improved  it. 

Radicals  have  played  the  same  part  in  the 
woman's  movement  that  they  have  played  in  the 
labor  movement.  It  is  not  that  the  mass  agrees 
with  them  or  likes  them  or  follows  them;  but 
they  have  clarified  and  given  a  coherence  to 
vague  subconscious  desires  of  an  inarticulate 
community.  They  have  presented  a  sharply 
etched  program  to  a  blind  urge.  Their  program 
is: 

Votes  for  women. 

Economic  equality. 

An  open  field  in  the  industrial  world. 

Those  clear-cut  demands  give  the  movement  a 
coherence,  a  cutting  edge.  But  those  demands 
are  not  the  woman's  movement.  They  are 
merely  the  instruments  with  which  it  can  work  its 
will.  When  it  has  received  its  instruments,  it 
will  then  proceed  to  do  its  work. 

To  change  the  figure,  it  is  easy  to  see  the 
portion  of  the  iceberg  that  is  above  the  water  and 
visibly  heaving  down  upon  our  man-made,  man- 
favoring  institutions.  But  seven  eighths  of  the 
mass  is  below  the  surface.  The  genius  of  the 

157 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

woman's  movement  lies  deeply  submerged  under 
surface  revolt,  economic  injustice,  and  resent- 
ment at  man's  unconscious  scorn  for  the  female 
mentality.  The  genius  of  the  woman's  move- 
ment lies  in  the  imperious  demands  of  her  nature 
for  worthy  expression.  Industry,  like  the  suf- 
frage, is  a  means  by  which  she  achieves  her 
personal  freedom  and  equality.  It  is  a  spiritual 
condition  which  she  is  seeking,  not  alone  a  new 
activity.  Fame  and  money  are  not  the  supreme 
incentives  to  her  that  they  are  to  man.  For  that 
reason  her  entrance  into  politics  and  work  offers 
the  promise  of  a  humanized  industry  and  a  better 
state. 

My  own  personal  impression  in  the  first  half- 
year  of  the  war  was  that  the  women  were  quicker 
to  get  a  start  on  than  the  men.  There  was 
almost  a  scramble  on  the  part  of  women  of  leisure 
to  volunteer  for  relief  work.  The  women  solved 
the  problem  of  Belgian  refugees  by  taking  them 
into  their  homes,  by  organizing  village  colonies 
for  them,  by  finding  them  work.  In  those  early 
months  I  attended  many  dozens  of  recruiting 
meetings.  I  found  that  two  of  the  most  popular 
speakers  were  Mrs.  Drummond  (the  "General") 

158 


WOMEN 

and  Mrs.  Pankhurst,  leaders  of  the  suffrage 
movement.  A  group  of  women  saw  the  war  in 
its  meaning  to  Great  Britain,  the  costliness  of 
waging  it,  the  immensity  of  the  effort  which 
would  have  to  be  put  forth,  long  before  the 
general  public  opinion  of  England  was  awakened. 
Women  have  revealed  adaptability  in  their 
war  work.  They  have  swung  swiftly  to  meet 
new  conditions  and  solve  unexpected  situations. 
A  good  instance  of  the  service  they  have  done 
England  is  that  of  their  organization  of  a  police 
force.  War  conditions  had  created  certain  perils 
to  the  community.  The  absence  of  the  father 
away  at  the  front  is  not  a  benefit  to  the  children 
at  home.  Boys  were  running  wild  and  thieving. 
Other  boys  were  being  overworked.  Immense 
numbers  of  men  on  leave  in  great  cities  are  a 
menace  to  the  well-being  of  excitable  girls.  War 
creates  its  own  atmosphere,  and  there  were  both 
a  looseness  and  a  tension,  strange  combination, 
in  the  life  of  khaki-clad  England.  A  group  of 
women  saw  the  peril  and  had  a  remedy.  Led  by 
Miss  Allen  and  Miss  Darner  Dawson,  they 
formed  the  Women  Police  Service  in  August  of 
1914.  There  were  half  a  dozen  of  them.  The 

159 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

members  have  grown  to  three  hundred,  and  they 
are  now  serving  not  only  London,  but  Grantham, 
Bath,  Hull,  Folkestone,  Wimbledon,  and  Rich- 
mond. Their  duties  are  patrolling,  attendance 
at  police  courts,  home  visiting,  supervision  of 
music-halls,  cinemas,  public  dance-halls,  and 
inspection  of  lodging-houses.  They  take  the 
depositions  of  children  and  women,  watch  the 
parks,  stations,  and  docks,  meet  Belgian  ref- 
ugees. At  certain  munition  factories  they  keep 
the  women's  gate,  searching  the  women,  and  per- 
mitting no  stranger  to  enter. 

Their  uniform  is  a  blue  military  tunic,  divided 
skirt,  riding-breeches,  riding-bowlers,  and  top- 
boots.  The  chiefs  wear  peaked  caps.  Their 
organization  is  one  of  chief  officer,  superintend- 
ents, inspectors,  clerical  staff,  sergeants,  and 
constables. 

When  they  made  their  start,  fifty  of  them  were 
drilled  by  a  sergeant  of  police  in  a  back  yard  of 
the  suburb  of  Hornsey.  The  first  town  they 
worked  in  officially  had  a  diocese  of  twenty-five 
thousand  inhabitants  and  thirty  thousand  sol- 
diers. Their  work  from  the  beginning  has  been 
more  preventive  than  repressive.  They  handle 

160 


WOMEN 

trouble  before  it  becomes  a  court  case  as  well  as 
after.     They  suggest  solutions. 

Commandant  Darner  Dawson,  the  chief  officer, 
speaking  of  Leicester  Square,  the  very  heart  of 
the  night  life  of  London,  said: 

Take,  for  instance,  Leicester  Square.  You  hear 
people  say  that  Leicester  Square  is  infested  by  "night 
hawks"  and  bullies  and  so  forth,  and  that  it  is  also  in- 
fested by  abominable  women.  No  abuse  has  been 
spared.  It  has  been  poured  upon  the  women  who  make 
a  trade  and  living  out  of  immorality,  but  very  few  have 
said  a  word  about  the  other  sex,  which  is  bound  to  be 
connected  with  the  life  of  the  London  streets.  One 
might  think  that  there  are  only  two  classes  of  people 
on  the  London  streets,  the  police  and  the  prostitutes, 
and  that  the  rest  are  innocent  people.  However,  it  is 
not  for  me  to  give  you  a  lecture  on  the  state  of  the 
London  streets,  except  inasmuch  as  it  touches  our  po- 
lice work  and  our  experiences  night  after  night. 

We  find  that  things  have  very  much  changed  since 
the  war  began,  and  are  changing  very  quickly.  There- 
fore you  can  not  possibly  write  to  the  papers  or  argue 
about  any  social  condition  which  existed  even  a  few 
months  ago.  You  must  go  straight  to  the  streets 
night  after  night  and  follow  up  cases  as  you  find  them ; 
and  this  is  what  you  find.  There  are  bullies  there,  both 
men  and  women  bullies,  but  not  to  the  same  extent  that 

161 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

there  used  to  be,  for  this  reason:  you  have  to  deal 
with  modern  women  on  the  streets,  and  you  will  find 
that  the  temptations  thrown  before  these  young  women 
from  the  time  that  they  are  "flappers"  is  enormous. 
Mind  you,  they  are  light-hearted,  aching  for  excite- 
ment, and  they  are  non-moral.  That  is  the  result  of 
social  conditions.  They  have  no  moral  training;  their 
parents  give  them  none,  and  they  have  very  little  at 
school,  and  they  have  very  little  religious  enthusiasm. 
Therefore  they  come  out  into  the  world  non-moral. 
Nevertheless,  they  are  exceedingly  human,  and  deter- 
mined to  have  a  good  time  at  all  costs.  They  are 
mostly  girls  who  have  tasted  the  bitterness  of  life, 
girls  among  the  five  millions  for  whom  there  may  not 
be  a  husband,  and  therefore  they  have  got  to  make 
their  own  living. 

Then  there  come  thousands  of  men,  with  hundreds 
and  thousands  in  money  to  spend,  and  the  young  women 
pay  the  price.  Do  you  think  they  know  the  price,  nine 
out  of  ten  of  them,  the  disease  and  the  misery  that  are 
going  to  ensue?  Of  course  they  do  not  know. 

The  policewomen  are  able  to  touch  a  certain  fringe 
of  this  work.  None  of  us  can  claim  anything  more; 
but  we  are  able  to  act  as  a  tremendous  deterrent.  In 
the  first  place,  certain  streets  which  we  patrol  at 
nights  we  are  able  to  keep  absolutely  clear.  Young  offi- 
cers, boys  of  seventeen  and  eighteen,  who  have  hardly 
left  their  mothers,  are  taken  to  these  streets  by  women 
who  ought  to  know  better ;  but  when  they  see  the  police- 

162 


WOMEN 

women  they  bolt.  Ours  is  only  patchwork,  but  it  is  a 
help.  In  a  great  many  cases  we  are  able  to  get  hold 
of  the  young  girls  and  to  save  them.  Young  girls  and 
young  men  get  to  know  us,  and  we  move  them  on.  The 
very  fact  that  a  policewoman  is  in  the  street  acts  as  a 
potent  moral  shame  to  what  is  going  on. 

I  was  very  struck  with  an  illustration  of  this  which 
occurred  the  other  day. 

"Are  they  friends  of  yours  ?"  said  a  policewoman  to  a 
couple  of  young  fellows  who  had  taken  hold  of  two 
girls. 

"How  dare  you !"  said  one  of  the  men,  quite  furious. 
"Of  course  I  know  them ;  they  are  cousins." 

"I  am  the  wife  of  an  officer,"  said  the  policewoman, 
"and  as  you  are  an  officer  wearing  the  king's  uniform 
I  take  your  word  for  it." 

Ten  minutes  later  the  young  officer  overtook  her  and 
said,  "They  were  not  my  cousins,  and  I  thought  you 
would  like  to  know  I  am  going  home." 

Any  person  of  experience  reading  that  knows 
that  Miss  Dawson  and  her  co-workers  have  a 
broader  and  more  fundamental  knowledge  of  our 
modern  social  problems  than  the  average  male  po- 
liceman. The  only  police  method  in  dealing  with 
the  "social  evil"  has  been  that  of  repression  and 
harrying,  interwoven  with  graft,  and  it  has  n't 
advanced  us  any  in  the  direction  of  a  solution. 

163 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

Take  another  instance.  A  serious  fight  was 
taking  place  between  two  drunken  soldiers  who 
should  have  been  in  camp.  The  men  had  taken 
off  their  coats  to  fight.  The  policewomen  cleared 
the  crowd,  separated  the  fighters,  persuaded 
them  to  put  on  their  coats,  shake  hands,  and 
return  to  camp.  The  old  orthodox  police 
method  for  such  a  fracas  was  a  clubbing.  The 
only  test  of  a  method  is,  Does  it  work?  The 
new  women's  way  works.  Success  has  been  their 
answer  to  tradition. 

These  new  women  officers  have  cut  their  way 
through  red  tape  and  obtained  the  right  to  act 
decisively  and  promptly.  The  military  author- 
ities have  given  them  the  right  of  entry  into 
houses  in  certain  restricted  districts,  so  that  they 
can  take  hold  of  a  situation  before  a  rumpus  sets 
in.  The  policewomen  observed  a  drunken  sol- 
dier enter  a  house  which  they  knew  to  be  occupied 
by  a  woman  whose  husband  had  just  left  for  the 
front.  This  house  had  been  previously  suspected 
by  them.  They  fetched  the  military  picket,  who 
came  at  once  to  the  house,  and  with  some  diffi- 
culty forced  an  entrance.  The  soldier  was 
caught  and  arrested.  Several  children  found  in 

164 


WOMEN 

the  house  in  a  dirty  and  diseased  condition  were 
taken  care  of  by  the  policewomen  and  handed 
over  to  the  inspector.  Before  the  picket  could 
enter,  the  woman  escaped  by  means  of  a  trap- 
door which  connected  with  three  other  houses. 

These  peace  patrols  have  dug  themselves  into 
the  community.  One  of  them  is  a  probation 
officer.  The  police  use  her  to  interview  women 
who  are  being  "summoned."  There  was  an 
entire  city  street  in  a  row,  like  one  of  our  before- 
the-war  Southern  vendettas.  Half  the  street 
had  summoned  the  other  half  to  court.  The 
policewoman  marched  the  whole  street  back  home, 
and  settled  the  case  out  of  court. 

A  constant  protective  watch  is  kept  over  the 
lives  of  children.  From  time  to  time  reports 
have  reached  the  policewomen  of  young  children 
of  school  age  working  excessive  hours  during  the 
school  week.  It  was  decided  to  approach  the 
head-masters  of  several  schools  who  welcomed 
help  in  the  matter  and  promised  detailed  reports. 
In  one  district  they  found  twenty-four  paper- 
boys with  hours  varying  from  7  %  to  25  per  school 
week.  The  beginning  hour  in  the  morning  seems 
to  be  from  6  to  6:30  A.  M.,  so  that  the  majority 

165 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

of  these  children  will  be  working  without  proper 
attention  to  food  and  habits.  Many  may  go  to 
school  without  any  regular  breakfast.  Of  these, 
two  are  eight  years  old,  one  getting  up  at  six 
o'clock,  the  other  at  6 :30  A.  M.  ;  one  of  them  work- 
ing 12%  hours,  the  other  1%  hours. 

Twenty-two  boys  take  milk  around.  Their 
ages  vary  from  8  to  13,  their  hours  from  7%  to 
12%  per  school  week,  beginning  work  from  4 :30 
to  6  o'clock  A.  M.  One  boy  of  8  works  20  hours 
a  week  beginning  at  4 :30  A.  M.  Two  boys,  13, 
house-boys,  work  7%  hours.  Two  boys  work  in 
coal-yards;  one  is  13  and  works  19  hours  per 
school  week,  beginning  at  8  A.  M.  ;  the  other  boy, 
aged  11,  helps  his  father,  and  works  5  hours  per 
school  week. 

The  question  of  child-labor  presents  itself  as 
one  of  the  root  problems  of  the  hour  for  local  as 
well  as  for  national  authorities.  The  police- 
women see  some  of  the  results  of  boy  fatigue  and 
malnutrition  in  the  listless,  uninterested  young 
people  standing  and  loitering  about,  ready  to 
follow  after  any  new  excitement. 

There  are  towns  where  no  by-laws  exist  reg- 
ulating the  employment  of  children  under 

166 


WOMEN 

fourteen.  The  question  has  been  before  the 
education  authorities  for  many  years,  and  the 
enforcing  of  certain  drafted  by-laws  is  likely  to 
remain  in  status  quo  owing  to  war  conditions. 
Employers  prefer  children  to  elderly  labor,  and 
many  parents  regard  their  offspring  as  financial 
assets.  The  work  of  these  women  guardians  will 
result  in  a  better  protection  of  child  life,  because 
they  have  exposed  the  evil  conditions.  The 
policewoman  is  an  official  mother.  She  does  not 
use  physical  violence.  She  talks  with  the  boys 
about  gambling  and  smoking  and  thieving.  She 
warns  the  girls.  There  are  no  fixed  posts. 
Often  she  covers  an  area  of  two  and  a  half  miles, 
as  in  the  borough  of  Paddington. 

War  has  let  loose  the  high  spirits  of  boys,  and 
some  of  them,  with  the  added  stimulus  of  Amer- 
ican films,  have  taken  to  the  life  of  pirates. 
London  streets  are  a  tumbling  sea  of  adventure, 
where  grocers'  carts  are  the  helpless  frigates  to 
be  manned  and  pillaged.  The  new  women 
"cops"  pull  the  boys  off  the  carts,  and  advise  them 
to  let  the  tea  and  jam  travel  on  unmolested. 

This  strange  excitement  of  war  touches  the 
imagination  till  it  sees  placid  planets  as  the  prod- 

167 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

uct  of  German  chemists.  During  one  of  the 
recent  Zeppelin  raids  on  the  east  coast,  police- 
women working  in  the  town  were  instructed  by 
the  authorities  to  patrol  the  streets  and  do  their 
best  to  prevent  panic  or  crowds  collecting.  On 
coming  upon  a  knot  of  excited  people  at  a  street 
corner  the  policewomen  assured  them  that  there 
was  no  further  danger,  as  the  Zeppelins  had  left 
and  that  every  one  could  return  home  in  safety. 
Some  soldiers  remonstrated,  and  said  it  was  cruel 
to  ask  the  women  to  take  their  children  home. 
They  pointed  to  a  light  in  the  sky,  which  they 
declared  to  be  a  bomb  dropping.  The  women 
wept  and  begged  not  to  be  sent  home.  The 
policewomen  calmed  them,  explaining  that  what 
the  soldiers  saw  was  no  bomb,  but  the  planet 
Venus  rising  in  the  sky,  and  persuaded  the  crowd 
to  disperse  quietly  and  the  parents  to  take  their 
tired  children  home. 

All  this  soothing,  daring  work  results  from 
stiff  training.  These  women  go  through  two 
months  of  instruction  in  drill,  first  aid,  special 
legal  acts  relating  to  women  and  children,  and 
the  procedure  and  rules  of  evidence  in  police 
courts.  They  are  shown  how  to  stand,  to  walk, 

168 


WOMEN 

and  attain  dignity  of  carriage,  for  a  slouchy 
woman  carries  no  authority.  They  are  taught  to 
talk  clearly  and  avoid  mumbling,  so  that  their 
evidence  will  convince  the  court.  They  are  told 
off  to  bring  in  reports  on  a  tour  of  the  streets: 
"Come  back  and  tell  what  you  have  seen."  This 
develops  accuracy  and  power  of  observation. 
Patrolling  in  the  public  parks  calls  for  patience 
to  endure  the  monotony  of  long,  watchful  wait- 
ing, keen  insight  to  detect  undesirable  citizens 
who  will  endanger  children  at  play,  psychological 
skill  in  knowing  the  mental  criminal,  who  works 
by  stealth  and  loathes  publicity. 

Street  work  demands  knowledge  of  the  social 
features  of  the  district,  what  to  do  with  diseased 
and  sick  persons,  where  to  send  drunks.  The 
authority  must  be  broad-minded,  using  a  warning 
word  instead  of  arrest  where  the  offense  is  petty. 

Oversight  in  factories  requires  an  officer  type 
of  woman  who  will  keep  the  women  smart  and 
good  tempered,  who  will  deal  justly  with  grum- 
bles, and  never  bear  a  personal  grievance. 

The  policewoman  is  different  from  the  rescue- 
worker,  the  "missionary,"  and  the  social  worker. 
She  is  a  practical  executive  who  can  not  long 

169 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

delay  with  the  one  case,  for  there  lies  on  her  beat 
a  mile  of  streets  with  a  dozen  other  cases.  She 
must  show  self-control  and  the  willingness  to 
hand  over  the  problem  to  other  agencies.  Where 
her  function  ceases,  there  the  mission  of  the  social 
worker  begins.  In  the  ranks  are  nurses,  medical 
women,  school-teachers,  women  from  govern- 
ment service,  sanitary  inspectors.  Several  ma- 
trons of  infirmaries  and  hospitals  are  making 
good  head  officers  because  they  are  accustomed  to 
leadership.  The  ages  of  policewomen  run  from 
twenty-five  to  forty-five.  Between  thirty  and 
forty  is  the  best  age,  because  the  woman  is  self- 
reliant,  has  conquered  her  hysterias,  and  is  in 
full  command  of  her  powers.  These  women 
have  succeeded  because  they  have  known  how  to 
avoid  interference  with  the  province  of  the  men 
police.  They  have  practised  a  division  of  work. 
There  was  a  city  where  a  particular  wooded  lane 
had  been  a  hanging-out  place  for  fourteen  years. 
Constables  and  the  bishop  had  been  powerless  to 
alter  conditions.  Four  policewomen  walked  the 
length  of  it,  spoke  to  thirty-six  couples,  waited 
with  backs  turned  till  they  had  accepted  the  sug- 
gestion, and  cleaned  the  place  up. 

170 


WOMEN 

"Which  of  you  is  the  mother  of  the  baby  in  the 
pink  cap  who  has  been  left  outside  in  the  rain  for 
twenty  minutes?"  asked  a  policewoman  of  a 
group  drinking  in  a  public  house.  The  mother 
had  to  come,  because  the  opinion  of  the  other 
guests  was  with  the  officer. 

Two  girls  were  reported  by  the  police  author- 
ities to  the  policewomen  as  missing,  one  of  them 
for  fifteen  weeks  and  the  other  for  over  rive,  and 
were  suspected  of  living  in  some  fields  near  a 
large  camp.  The  policewomen  on  bicycles 
searched  for  them  for  two  days,  and  finally  dis- 
covered them  in  a  filthy  and  starving  condition 
and  took  them  back  to  their  parents.  They  have 
since  applied  to  the  policewomen  to  put  them 
in  touch  with  a  home  which  deals  with  such 
cases. 

England  is  a  mixed  democracy  much  like  ours, 
with  fine  elements  and  ignoble  elements.  But 
these  clear-eyed  women  of  the  police  force,  like 
the  nurses  and  welfare  secretaries,  gave  me  an 
assurance  that  an  immense,  untapped  resource  is 
there  to  renew  life  after  the  wreckage  of  these 
years. 

War  has  discovered  them.  Peace  must  con- 
171 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

tinue  to  make  use  of  them.     England  has  need 
of  them. 

Undoubtedly  to  the  student  of  peoples  there 
was  much  that  was  dreary  under  the  beauty  and 
peace  of  the  old  England  that  existed  before 
1914;  but  what  was  most  oppressive  was  the  con- 
dition of  women.  Drunkenness  and  militancy 
were  only  two  symptoms  of  a  disease  that  was  eat- 
ing out  the  heart  of  an  ancient  civilization. 
Women  were  suppressed.  They  carried  the  con- 
sciousness of  being  caught  in  a  social  system  that 
allowed  no  free  play  for  instinct,  intelligence,  and 
energy,  a  system  that  forbade  useful  work,  that 
silenced  self-expression,  that  doomed  the  average 
middle-class  woman  to  idleness  under  the  mask 
of  respectability,  and  the  lower-class  woman  to 
drudgery.  There  comes  a  time  with  a  theory 
when  action  is  the  only  test,  and  British  women 
have  proceeded  to  put  into  practice  their  claims. 
I  use  the  policewomen  as  an  illustration  of  the 
new  activity  which  has  touched  all  classes. 
What  I  wish  to  show  is  not  their  isolated  per- 
formance. What  they  have  done  is  only  one 
instance  of  the  release  of  energy  which  has  won 
spiritual  freedom  for  the  women  of  England. 

172 


CHAPTER  IV 

IRELAND 

THE   IRISH   QUESTION 

I  BELIEVE  that  the  most  helpful  view  I  can 
give  of  the  Irish  question  is  a  simple  record  of 
my  brief  visit,  with  the  talks  I  had  with  Irishmen. 
I  have  no  solutions,  but  I  have  a  real  sympathy, 
and  I  believe  that  the  way  to  better  relationship 
lies  in  the  creation  of  an  atmosphere  of  sym- 
pathy, which  will  result  in  intellectual  under- 
standing. I  write  nothing  here  in  a  spirit  of 
contention.  I  trust  that  no  offense  will  be  taken. 

The  Irish  Rebellion  had  seemed  to  me  a  piece 
of  strange,  mystical  futility.  The  failure  of 
Ireland  to  be  stirred  by  the  plight  of  Roman 
Catholic  Belgium  had  seemed  to  me  a  failure  in 
idealism.  The  irreconcilable  Irish  in  America 
had  seemed  to  me  a  set  of  men  "scrapping" 
volubly  for  the  sake  of  words  and  dissension. 

I  found  in  Ireland  a  national  aspiration  that 
173 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

moved  me  as  the  French  spirit  of  nationality  has 
moved  the  world  for  now  these  two  years.  The 
proud  and  charming  Irish  people,  with  a  culture, 
tradition,  literature,  race,  religion,  natural  geo- 
graphical unity,  and  economic  system  of  their 
own,  believe  they  have  the  right  to  as  full  a  meas- 
ure of  self-government  as  Canada  possesses,  in- 
cluding control  of  finances.  Sane  opinion  in  Ire- 
land is  well  aware  that  in  any  solution  Ireland  re- 
mains inside  the  federation  of  the  British  common- 
wealth; but  the  status  toward  which  the  intel- 
ligent Irish  work  is  that  of  a  self-governing 
nation,  like  the  free  colonies. 

Increasingly  the  present  generation  of  Irish- 
men realizes  that  if  old-age  pensions,  state  insur- 
ance, land  purchase,  cooperative  grants,  the 
police,  estates  commission,  and  congested-districts 
board  have  to  be  paid  for  by  controlled  govern- 
ment and  crippled  autonomy,  the  answer  is  a 
refusal  to  accept  their  benefits.  Ireland  must 
pay  her  own  way  if  subsidy  implies  control. 
"Irish  expenditure  should  be  limited  by  Irish 
revenue."  This  is  one  of  the  matters  in  which 
some  of  the  older  Irish  political  leaders  have 
failed  to  represent  the  younger  element. 

174 


IRELAND 

A  living  element  of  young  Ireland  to-day  is  in 
revolt  against  these  older  leaders.  The  men  who 
have  patiently  and  self-sacrificingly  fought  for 
the  rights  of  Ireland  through  long  years  are  still 
in  control  of  the  Irish  party  at  Westminster.  A 
part  of  young  Ireland  is  as  weary  of  them  as  a 
city  state  once  grew  of  Aristides.  To  debate  the 
justice  of  this  state  of  mind  is  to  multiply  words, 
but  not  to  clarify  the  situation. 

The  young  men  believe  that  the  ideas  in  con- 
trol of  Irish  policy  are  the  ideas  of  old  men  out 
of  touch  with  present  aspiration.  These  young 
men  have  determined  that  their  own  ideas  shall 
prevail. 

Tradition  is  the  one  essential  element  in  nation- 
ality. Tradition  is  the  memory  of  a  common 
experience,  the  deposit  of  a  common  suffering  for 
an  idea.  Of  tradition  Professor  Ramsay  Muir 
has  written: 

The  most  potent  of  all  nation-molding  factors,  the 
one  indispensable  factor  which  must  be  present  what- 
ever else  be  lacking,  is  the  possession  of  a  common  tra- 
dition, a  memory  of  sufferings  endured  and  victories 
won  in  common,  expressed  in  song  and  legend,  in  the 
dear  names  of  great  personalities  that  seem  to  embody 

175 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

in  themselves  the  character  and  ideals  of  the  nation,  in 
the  names  also  of  sacred  places  wherein  the  national 
memory  is  enshrined. 

A  race  of  writers  sprang  up  in  Ireland  who 
had  fed  on  the  ancient  Gaelic  sources.  The  Irish 
people  rediscovered  that  they  came  of  a  race  who 
had  elected  their  chieftains  and  who  had  possessed 
the  land  communally.  The  legends  of  poets  and 
saints  and  heroes  were  recalled  to  a  racial  imagi- 
nation which  is  responsive,  and  that  fine  infection 
began  to  spread  through  the  farms  and  cities. 
Ireland  is  not  alone  in  this.  She  is  only  a  sharer 
in  a  general  mass  consciousness.  A  movement 
of  nature  has  operated  throughout  the  modern 
world.  No  man  can  trace  its  source  and  origin. 
It  marches  irresistibly  without  visible  leadership. 
It  has  taken  control  of  a  dynastic  war,  and  made 
it  a  world  war  of  peoples.  It  draws  the 
scattered  dry  bones  of  Poland  back  into  a  living 
organism.  It  lifted  the  France  of  the  Dreyfus 
Trial  into  the  glory  of  the  Marne  and  Verdun. 
It  coalesced  the  quarrelsome  individualism  of 
England  into  the  unified,  victorious  socialistic 
state.  The  expression  of  this  world  movement 
is  local  and  intense  in  Ireland.  Clear  thinking 

176 


IRELAND 

is  necessary,  large  concessions,  a  forgiving  state 
of  mind,  sound  economic  and  sociological  meas- 
ures, a  series  of  prosaic  next  steps.  A  sane 
trade-union  policy,  cooperation,  education,  reli- 
gious tolerance,  clean  local  politics  are  demanded 
to  free  Ireland  from  poverty  and  dissension. 
Some  of  this  ground-work  is  already  being  done. 
Much  is  still  required.  In  the  Anglo-Irish  ques- 
tion there  are  many  points  of  resemblance  to  that 
of  capital  and  labor.  Just  as  the  lot  of  labor  has 
grown  steadily  better  through  recent  generations, 
so  the  condition  of  Ireland  is  improving  year  by 
year.  There  have  been  extensions  of  justice. 
Ameliorative  agencies  are  at  work.  Only  four 
years  ago  Erskine  Childers,  the  protagonist  of 
Home  Rule,  wrote : 

A  great  change  has  taken  place  in  the  condition  of 
Ireland  during  the  last  nineteen  years.  We  all  know 
its  main  characteristics,  and  I  need  only  summarize 
the  result.  By  contrast  with  her  situation  in  1893, 
Ireland  may  be  said  to  be  completely  tranquil  and  com- 
paratively prosperous.  More  than  half  the  tenants  of 
Irish  land  are  on  the  road  to  freehold  ownership;  the 
rest  have  their  rights  guarded  and  their  rents  limited 
by  law.  The  great  cardinal  land  reforms,  late,  terri- 
bly late,  though  they  came,  laid  the  foundations  of  a 

177 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

new  social  order,  and  rendered  possible  a  change  for 
the  better  in  every  phase  of  national  life.  Though  all 
work  not  done  by  Ireland  herself  for  her  own  good 
must  necessarily  be  defective,  we  may  frankly  admit 
that  both  English  parties  in  recent  years  have  endeav- 
ored to  do  their  best  in  limited  directions  to  repair  the 
frightful  ravages  wrought  by  past  misgovernment. 
The  extension  of  local  government  to  Ireland,  focus- 
ing the  minds  of  Irishmen  upon  many  of  their  own 
local  problems,  has  powerfully  contributed  to  the  im- 
provement. Decent,  healthy  dwellings  are  replacing 
the  old  mud  cabins  of  the  laboring  classes.  There  is 
a  National  University;  there  is  a  central  department, 
with  popular  influence  behind  it,  for  safeguarding  and 
stimulating  agriculture  and  industry.  Nearly  three 
millions  of  money  are  distributed  in  Old  Age  Pensions. 
Economic  serfdom  has  disappeared.  A  load  of  exorbi- 
tant rent,  and  a  still  heavier  load  of  haunting  inse- 
curity, have  been  removed.  The  spirit  is  freer,  the 
physical  welfare  greater.  Production  is  slowly  in- 
creasing, and  commerce  is  slowly  expanding. 

The  national  university  in  the  great  Irish 
cities  has  been  a  belated,  but  now  partly  ef- 
ficient, piece  of  justice.  These  colleges  carry 
on  scientific  research  to  further  industrial  devel- 
opment. There  is  training  adapted  to  the  needs 
of  the  locality.  Trinity  produces  young  doctors, 

178 


IRELAND 

lawyers,  and  literary  men  known  throughout  the 
English-speaking  world.  The  Irish  land  com- 
mission, the  estates  commission,  the  congested- 
districts  board,  labor  in  their  own  way  to  restore 
the  land  to  the  peasant  proprietors  and  to  give 
them  decent  lodging.  The  department  of  agri- 
culture and  technical  instruction  for  Ireland 
informs  the  peasants  in  modern  methods  of  agri- 
culture and  the  development  of  horticulture. 
The  Irish  Agricultural  Organization  Society  is 
the  long  official  name  for  the  cooperative  society 
of  which  Sir  Horace  Plunkett  is  president,  which 
has  1023  societies,  350  creameries,  95  auxiliary 
creameries,  233  credit  societies,  222  agricultural 
societies,  and  a  membership  of  106,301  persons. 
It  has  a  turnover  of  $90,000,000.  The  local 
government  board  has  given  Ireland  an  increas- 
ing opportunity  in  self-government.  Indus- 
trially Ireland  builds  ships,  makes  linen,  whisky, 
stout,  ginger-ale,  agricultural  implements,  bis- 
cuits. Agriculturally  she  raises  food-stuffs  and 
exports  cattle,  sheep,  horses,  butter,  eggs.  Agri- 
culture and  its  direct  connections  employ  eighty 
per  cent,  of  her  population,  industry  twenty  per 
cent. 

179 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

The  institutions  of  education  and  executive 
management,  the  governmental  and  voluntary 
departments,  the  returning  prosperity  of  her 
forming  community,  the  growing  wealth  of 
industrial  Ulster — all  these  are  making  Ireland 
a  better  place  to  live  in  than  it  was  in  the  nine- 
teenth century.  Ireland  is  not  going  down. 
She  is  coming  up,  and  all  that  improvement  is 
without  reference  to  the  Home  Rule  question. 

In  the  literary  world  Ireland  is  very  much  on 
the  map.  I  saw  three  groups  of  Irish  players,  at 
the  Abbey  Theater,  the  Empire,  and  the  Irish 
Theater  in  Hardwicke  Street.  These  groups 
gave  six  plays,  containing  accurate  observation 
of  life  and  a  dramatic  idea,  rendered  with  a  charm 
of  interpretation.  There  is  to-day  no  dramatic 
growth  so  native  and  racy  in  America  or  Eng- 
land. The  Irish  writers  and  poets  are  among 
the  best  in  our  language.  Lady  Gregory,  Yeats, 
James  Stephens,  A.  E.,  Katharine  Tynan,  Dora 
Sigerson,  Dunsany,  George  Moore,  and  Bernard 
Shaw  are  worthy  representatives  of  a  creative 
tradition.  These  poets  and  prose  writers  are  not 
like  those  of  England  and  New  England,  men 
speaking  a  literary  dialect  unrelated  to  the 

180 


IRELAND 

aspiration  of  the  mass  of  the  people.  The  Irish- 
men of  talent  are  giving  a  voice  to  their  race. 
Irish  art  is  a  national  expression. 

The  Irish  are  a  religious  race,  wherein  they 
differ  from  the  Americans,  French,  and  English 
of  this  generation.  Unionists  and  Nationalists 
are  believers.  This  fundamental  conception  of 
life  colors  their  education,  literature,  and  political 
ideas.  For  this  reason,  as  well  as  for  many  other 
reasons,  it  is  impossible  for  an  outsider  to  leg- 
islate for  them.  No  policy  that  omits  the  sac- 
ramental view  of  life  can  survive  in  this  land  of 
simple  and  profound  faith. 

Such  are  a  few  aspects  of  a  community  as 
varied  and  delightful  as  I  have  ever  visited. 
Now  I  return  to  my  analogy  of  capital  and  labor. 
With  each  increase  of  well-being,  the  laboring 
classes  have  only  struggled  the  harder  for  further 
gains.  They  aim  at  a  share  in  control,  not  at 
well-fed  contentment  in  a  benevolent  industrial 
autocracy.  It  is  so  with  the  Irish.  They  have 
made  astonishing  gains  since  1893. 

"Now,  we  know  very  well  what  the  Unionists 
are  saying  about  this  improvement,"  writes  an 
Irish  scholar.  "They  are  saying  that  it  has  not 

181 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

only  removed  the  necessity  for  Home  Rule,  but 
weakened  the  desire  for  Home  Rule." 

But  the  very  improvement — improvement  in 
education,  in  agriculture,  in  self-government — 
has  only  heightened  the  self -consciousness  and 
intensified  the  nationality  of  Ireland.  It  would 
be  nonsense  to  say  to-day  that  Ireland  is  "com- 
pletely tranquil."  Granting  that  the  basic  prob- 
lems are  those  of  self -development,  a  wise  eco- 
nomic policy,  a  general,  compulsory  education 
(now  a  father  can  pay  a  fine  of  a  few  shillings  a 
year  and  keep  his  child  at  work  instead  of  at 
school),  a  cooperation  in  every  department  of 
community  life,  instead  of  the  present  dissension, 
which  cuts  efficiency  into  small  wrangling  bits, 
yet  the  fact  remains  that  the  central  cause  of 
unrest,  the  creator  of  difference,  is  the  feeling  of 
political  servitude. 

The  study  of  the  Gaelic  language  is  by  some 
regarded  as  the  hope  of  Ireland  and  by  others  as 
the  mother  of  rebellion.  A  good-natured  ref- 
erence to  Protestants  was  interpreted  by  the  man 
sitting  behind  me  in  the  Empire  Theater  as  an 
attack  on  Presbyterianism,  and  he  shouted  out 
his  resentment.  The  trail  of  political  division  is 

182 


IRELAND 

over  every  cell  of  the  national  consciousness. 
Not  one  of  Ireland's  pressing  problems  can  be 
solved  in  the  present  atmosphere. 

In  the  formative  years  of  my  life  I  was 
educated  by  an  Englishman,  an  Oxford  man. 
For  nine  years  an  Englishwoman  has  been  a 
member  of  my  household.  Most  of  my  spare 
time  in  the  last  sixteen  years  has  been  spent  in 
England — eight  visits,  and  a  residence  of  two 
years  at  one  time.  I  don't  pretend  to  generalize, 
but  I  do  claim  the  right  to  record  personal  im- 
pressions that  are  based  on  a  fairly  wide  observa- 
tion and  experience.  I  find  the  largest  measure 
of  personal  liberty  in  England  of  any  country 
which  I  have  visited.  I  believe  the  masses  in 
England  to  be  the  kindliest  people  known  to  me. 
And  this  well-nigh  general  kindliness  and  this 
belief  in  the  rights  of  the  individual  man  have 
made  England  a  champion  of  freedom  and  jus- 
tice, for  freedom  and  justice  are  the  social  ex- 
pression of  individual  good-will  and  of  reverence 
for  personality. 

Edward  Carpenter  says  of  his  people : 

The  leaden  skies  of  England,  and  something  (if  I 
may  say  so)  rather  gray  and  leaden  about  the  people, 

183 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

have  since  my  early  days  had  the  effect  of  making  me 
feel  not  quite  at  home  in  my  own  country.  I  longed 
for  more  sunshine,  and  for  something  corresponding  to 
sunshine  in  human  nature — more  gaiety,  vivacity  of 
heart  and  openness  of  ideas. 

In  dealing  with  an  unsuppressed,  graceful,  and 
charming  race  like  the  Irish,  the  Englishman  is 
at  a  hopeless  disadvantage.  The  mental  alert- 
ness, the  flow  of  language,  the  swift  responsive- 
ness of  mood,  leave  him  shy  and  inarticulate,  and, 
outpointed  at  every  thrust,  he  takes  refuge  in  his 
heaviness.  The  result  is  offense  given  and 
received.  It  is  the  tragedy  of  the  English  that, 
kindly  and  honorable  as  they  are,  they  have 
established  no  real  relationship  with  the  most  ex- 
quisitely imaginative  people  in  the  world. 

Just  now  England  is  in  the  most  bitter  war- 
fare of  her  thousand  years.  It  is  humanly  im- 
possible for  her  to  turn  aside  from  the  work  in 
front  of  her  to  solve  the  wrong  inside  her  com- 
monwealth. To  shout  her  down  is  to  strengthen 
her  enemy  at  the  moment  of  combat,  and  her 
enemy  is  the  enemy  of  the  human  race.  To 
weaken  her  is  to  weaken  the  last  defense  against 
that  force  which  would  destroy  nationality 

184 


IRELAND 

throughout  Europe.  So  the  cause  of  Ireland, 
like  that  of  exploited  labor  and  suppressed 
women,  must  wait  the  greater  decision  to  the 
east.  But  when  peace  comes,  the  turn  of  Ireland 
comes,  and  she  will  be  heard  at  the  "round  table" 
of  the  imperial  conference.  The  modified  Lloyd- 
George  "settlement"  will  again  be  suggested. 
That  provides  for  the  Home  Rule  Act  for 
twenty-six  counties  of  Ireland,  but  excludes  from 
its  operation  six  counties  of  Ulster  which  cannot 
be  brought  under  its  terms  except  by  a  new  act 
of  the  imperial  Parliament.  This  proposed 
settlement  goes  far  in  removing  Ireland  from  the 
former  parochial  dealings  with  England,  and 
places  Ireland  as  a  self-governing  unit  within 
the  new  British  commonwealth.  It  gives  her  a 
better  status  than  in  the  past,  but  it  leaves  un- 
solved the  question  of  partition,  and  it  withholds 
financial  control.  The  situation  will  never  be 
solved  at  one  stroke,  however  bold,  but,  rather, 
by  a  series  of  next  steps.  The  same  cause  for 
which  the  English  die  in  Picardy  in  the  noblest 
war  of  their  history  awaits  their  chivalrous 
response  across  the  Irish  Sea.  A  little  nation 
desires  to  be  free.  In  the  final  judgment  of  men 

185 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

England's  greatness  in  this  day  will  be  measured 
by  the  treatment  she  metes  to  Ireland. 

YOUNG  ENGLAND   SPEAKS 

At  my  request,  one  of  the  younger  English 
statesmen  has  written  this  reply  to  the  foregoing 
chapter: 

If  the  Irish  question  has  to  be  solved  at  all,  it 
has  to  be  solved  by  young  England  and  young 
Ireland  together.  The  very  fact,  admitted  by 
all  sane  opinion  in  Ireland — that  Ireland  must 
remain  inside  the  federation  of  the  British  com- 
monwealth— means  that  the  solution  is  a  common 
and  mutual  one  which  cannot  in  the  nature  of 
things  be  decided  by  the  unaided  efforts  of  Ire- 
land herself.  For  one  thing,  take  the  question  of 
finance.  Perhaps  the  most  urgent  problems  in 
Ireland  are  the  social  reforms  which  can  be  car- 
ried through  only  by  the  expenditure  of  money. 
Not  only  would  an  absolutely  independent  Ire- 
land be  unable  to  devote  money  to  new  reforms, 
but  she  would  even  have  to  reduce  many  of  the 
social  expenditures  now  existing  under  the  heads 
of  old-age  pensions,  state  insurance,  congested- 

186 


IRELAND 

districts  board,  etc.  Young  Ireland  says  that 
she  will  reduce  her  expenditure  and  limit  it  by  her 
own  revenue  rather  than  accept  a  subsidy  from 
England  implying  English  control.  Young 
England,  on  the  other  hand,  is  obliged  to  reply, 
in  words  familiar  to  American  political  thought, 
that  a  subsidy  from  England  to  Ireland  without 
some  control  would  be  taxation  of  the  English 
people  without  representation,  and  is  therefore 
constitutionally  unthinkable  as  anything  like  a 
permanent  arrangement.  But  the  actual  con- 
stitutional counterpart  of  payments  between 
states  united  in  the  same  federated  common- 
wealth is  a  matter  of  adjustment  which  need  not 
imply  any  loss  of  independence  or  self-govern- 
ment. The  only  thing  necessary  to  the  creation 
of  such  constitutional  machinery  is  mutual  con- 
sultation. 

And  somewhere  here  lies  the  real  tragedy  of  the 
Irish  Rebellion.  Young  England — the  England 
that  was  finding  itself  in  "The  Round  Table," 
in  the  Workers'  Educational  Association,  and 
to  a  certain  extent  even  in  the  Unionist  Social 
Reform  Committee — had,  before  the  war,  become 
inexpressibly  weary  of  the  atmosphere  in  which 

187 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

the  Anglo-Irish  question  was  carried  on  at  West- 
minster. They  knew  not  only  the  failure  of 
English  government  in  Ireland,  but  also  the 
souring  and  clogging  effect  of  the  Irish  party  at 
Westminster  upon  the  Government  of  England. 
They,  in  common  with  many  well-known  Irish- 
men in  Ireland  who  had  cut  themselves  off  from 
political  factions  during  the  last  fifteen  years — 
the  Plunketts,  the  Mounteagles,  the  Russells — 
recognized  men  like  Connolly  and  the  whole 
young  Irish  party,  whose  aspirations  you  have 
described,  as  far  more  competent  to  deal  with  the 
problem  in  a  fundamental  way  than  the  Nation- 
alists at  Westminster.  Such  members  of  young 
England  found  their  ideas  best  summed  up  by 
that  poem  in  which  A.  E.  confesses  "the  golden 
heresy  of  truth."  They  really  thought  that  out 
of  young  Ireland  was  growing  a  party  with 
whom  they  could  work  in  the  immediate  introduc- 
tion of  Home  Rule  within  a  federated  British 
Empire  which  more  than  anything  else  satisfied 
their  longing  for  a  comprehensive  policy. 

Such  men,  cast  down  into  the  depths  by  the 
bickerings  of  July,  1914,  rejoiced  to  see  their 
hopes  confirmed  by  the  sweeping  change  in  Eng- 

188 


IRELAND 

land  which  followed  the  outbreak  of  war — by  the 
obliteration  in  all  but  a  few  journalistic  and  par- 
liamentary circles  of  the  old  pre-war  contests. 

The  hopes  of  this  young  England,  which  is 
now  to  a  man  in  the  trenches  or  in  government 
departments  absorbed  in  the  overwhelming  duties 
of  war,  have  been  cheated  much  as  the  hopes  of 
those  young  American  enthusiasts  who  in  1911, 
during  the  Lawrence  strike,  hailed  the  syndi- 
calists and  Giovanitti  as  truer  representatives  of 
the  aspirations  of  labor  than  the  older  trade- 
unions,  have  been  soured  and  destroyed  by  the 
petty  bitterness  and  futility  of  "the  masses." 
But  the  disappointment  was  far  more  deadly. 
The  Irish  Rebellion  was  to  them  the  stab  in  the 
back  from  just  the  people  with  whom  they  felt 
best  able  to  cooperate  after  the  war,  and  it  was 
a  stab  all  the  more  fatal  because  young  England 
did  not  lose  its  respect  for  leaders  like  Connolly. 
They  still  say  they  would  rather  have  seen  Ire- 
land under  the  government  of  a  man  of  this 
stamp  than  ten  men  from  the  Ulster  army  or 
from  the  orthodox  Nationalist  party. 

The  average  man  in  the  street  in  England 
to-day,  so  far  from  wishing  to  govern  Ireland, 

189 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

has  only  one  idea,  to  clear  out  of  Ireland  as 
quickly  as  possible.  Ireland  to  him  is  not  a  field 
for  the  administrative  qualities  of  the  English 
any  more  than  Quebec  or  the  Transvaal.  It  is  a 
field  for  their  political  qualities.  It  is  a  part  of 
the  self-governing  empire,  not  one  of  the  depend- 
encies; it  is  a  nation  of  equals,  co-authors  with 
the  English  of  the  British  Empire,  co-settlers 
and  comrades-in-arms,  not  a  "backward  race." 
Young  England  insists  that,  while  a  despairing 
severance  of  relations  between  England  and 
Ireland  in  the  spirit  of  Joan  of  Arc  "as  to  the 
peace  with  the  English,  the  only  one  possible  is 
that  they  should  go  back  to  their  own  country  in 
England,"  though  it  would  be  better  than  the 
present  situation,  would  be  as  futile  and  unneces- 
sary as  Lee  in  1861  believed  the  severance  of 
Virginia  from  Massachusetts.  There  is  no  need 
for  Ireland  to  starve  herself  of  money  in  the 
belief  that  a  federal  government  at  Westminster 
must  mean  loss  of  self-government  in  Ireland. 
And  just  because  Ireland  is  not  a  backward  race 
or  merely  a  wronged  race,  young  England  can- 
not be  content  with  the  application  to  her  of  the 
policy  of  Indian  reformers  in  the  United  States, 

190 


IRELAND 

"Give  the  Indian  his  portion  and  clear  out." 
The  only  thing  that  could  prevent  the  inevi- 
table righteous  and  peaceful  settlement  of  the 
Irish  question  would  be  a  feeling  in  young  Eng- 
land that  the  Irish  revolutionists  have  gained 
applause  not  for  all  their  aspirations  and  policies 
with  which  young  England  ardently  sym- 
thized,  but  for  the  last  mad  mistake  which  led 
young  Ireland  to  desert  the  cause  of  liberty  at 
the  very  moment  of  Verdun.  It  is  this  applause 
coming  from  America — the  bitterness  of  Roman 
Catholic  pulpits  in  Boston  and  Chicago,  the  rail- 
ings of  mass  meetings  in  New  York,  the  irrespon- 
sible perorations  of  Irish-American  politicians 
— that  chiefly  threatens  the  future  of  Ireland. 
Young  England  saw  a  vision  before  the  war,  and 
that  vision  has  been  confirmed  by  the  sufferings 
of  the  war.  Young  England  will  come  back 
from  the  trenches  few  (how  few!)  in  numbers, 
but  with  new  determination  for  the  future. 
They  cannot  and  will  not  accept  from  America 
that  last  and  worst  doctrine  of  reaction,  the 
doctrine  of  Lot's  wife,  who,  looking  back  on  a 
past  already  redeemed,  remained  a  pillar  of  bit- 
terness for  all  future  generations. 

191 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

THE   SIAMESE   TWIN 

To  talk  about  Ireland  and  omit  Ulster  is  to 
construct  an  Algebra  by  omitting  x.  A  portion 
of  Ulster  is  resolutely  determined  to  stay  outside 
Irish  self-government.  This  section  is  friendly 
to  England,  is  in  favor  of  British  rule  in  Ireland, 
is  Protestant,  and  is  industrially  a  powerful 
community.  To  go  into  the  history  of  this  di- 
vision would  be  barren,  so  I  pick  up  the  situation 
as  it  is  to-day.  A  large  number  of  young  Irish 
Nationalists  wish  the  coming  Ireland  to  be 
a  seamless  garment,  one  and  indivisible.  A 
famous  song  in  Ireland  is  that  of  Thomas  Davis, 
"A  Nation  Once  Again": 

And  then  I  prayed  I  yet  might  see 

Our  fetters  rent  in  twain, 
And  Ireland,  long  a  province,  be 

A  nation  once  again. 

The  phrase  "a  nation  once  again"  is  as  famous 
in  Ireland  as  "government  of  the  people"  among 
us.  When  the  plan  of  excluding  certain  coun- 
ties of  Ulster  fell  through,  the  sentiment  of  young 
Nationalist  Ireland  turned  against  any  compro- 
mise which  would  omit  any  part  of  Ireland  from 

192 


IRELAND 

Home  Rule,  and  the  song  was  parodied  "Three 
Quarters  of  a  Nation  Once  Again." 

A  farcical  skit  was  recently  produced  at  the 
Abbey  Theater  in  Dublin,  called  "Partition." 
It  shows  a  house  lying  exactly  on  the  border-line 
of  Ulster  and  Leinster,  so  that  one  half  the  house 
is  in  each  province.  ("There  is  a  village,"  says 
the  program,  "half  of  which  would  be  under  the 
proposed  Home  Rule  Jurisdiction  and  the  other 
half  under  the  control  of  the  Executive  for  the 
excluded  counties.")  Andy  Kelly,  who  lives  in 
the  house,  shifts  his  furniture  to  the  Ulster  side 
when  the  Home  Rule  bailiffs  come  to  sell  him 
up.  When  both  sets  of  bailiffs  come,  he  draws 
a  chalk  mark,  and  piles  his  household  stuff  in  the 
center  of  the  room.  A  fine  scrap  breaks  out  be- 
tween the  representatives  of  the  two  govern- 
ments. Andy's  summary  of  the  situation  is 
this: 

"I  'm  a  Siamese  twin.  I  'm  a  sort  of  a  two  in 
wan,  an'  now  look  here,  it 's  the  queerest  thing 
— what  kind  of  a  hole  would  ye  be  in  if  wan  of 
the  twins  was  to  steal  somethin'  an'  maybe  th' 
other  lad  as  innocent  as  a  baby,  shure  ye  could  n't 
cut  them  in  two  an'  ye  could  n't  put  both  o'  them 

193 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

in  jail  wid  wan  o'  them  maybe  provin'  an 
alibi." 

The  play  ends  with  "General  fighting,  furni- 
ture all  over  the  place,  women  screaming.  The 
village  cornet-player  is  heard  in  the  distance 
playing  'A  Nation  Once  Again.' '  As  the  cur- 
tain falls,  Andy  says,  "Begobs  the  Siamese  twins 
will  be  kilt  and  buried  in  the  wan  coffin." 

Professor  John  MacNeill,  who  was  head  of  the 
Irish  Volunteers  before  the  Easter  Rising,  and 
who  is  now  serving  a  life  sentence  in  prison  as  a 
"rebel,"  wrote  concerning  the  Ulster  cul  de  sac: 

"I  urge  the  Irish  people  to  permit  no  sur- 
render on  the  partition  question." 

And  these  are  his  reasons : 

Politically  speaking,  Ulster  is  made  up  of  a  compact 
Nationalist  West  in  Donegal,  a  less  intact  Unionist 
East  in  Antrim  and  Down,  with  two  great  Nationalist 
limbs  and  two  great  Unionist  limbs  alternately  lying 
almost  from  side  to  side  of  the  province.  If  you  take 
two  of  those  horseshoe-shaped  breakfast  rolls  and 
dovetail  one  into  the  other,  you  will  have  a  rough  ap- 
proximate plan  of  political  Ulster. 

The  partition  of  Ulster  would  give  rise  to  a  state  of 
things  for  which  one  would  have  to  go  to  the  Balkan  pen- 
insula under  the  Disraelian  "settlement"  for  a  parallel. 

194 


IRELAND 

If  you  cut  the  more  compact  areas  of  the  Plantation 
off  from  Ireland  de  jure  and  de  facto,  you  will  make 
a  real  enemy  of  their  inhabitants,  and  arm  them  with 
greater  powers  of  mischief  than  they  have  ever  pos- 
sessed since  the  days  when  the  old  race  and  the  new 
were  at  open  war.  You  would  have  a  recognized 
Lesser  Britain,  and  a  lesser  Britain  irredenta  stretching 
right  through  the  heart  of  Ulster,  with  kinsmen  and 
sympathizers  all  over  Ireland.  What  opportunities 
for  a  lively  time !  And  the  Ireland  irredenta  made  fast 
in  the  midst  of  the  British  territory  would  not  be  be- 
hindhand. 

If  Catholic  and  Protestant  roughly  correspond  in 
Ireland  to  Nationalist  and  anti-Nationalist,  there  must 
be  some  other  cause  than  religious  sentiment  operating 
through  religious  sentiment  to  create  national  disunion. 

The  Ulster  Unionist  has  been  taught  to  regard  him- 
self as  a  full-blooded  Teuton  and  his  Catholic  neighbor 
as  a  full-blooded  Celt.  It  is  not  a  fact  of  race,  but 
an  illusion  of  race,  that  makes  Ulster  Unionists  pro- 
British  and  anti-Irish. 

There  are  not  two  Irish  nations.  A  foreign  "fac- 
tion" is  a  familiar  feature  in  many  a  national  history. 
We  have  in  the  Irish  nation  of  to-day  a  foreign  fac- 
tion. I  have  found  myself  in  Belfast  right  in  the  zone 
of  fire  between  two  stone  throwing  mobs,  one  Catholic, 
the  other  Protestant.  Nobody  will  persuade  me  that 
either  Irish  nationality  or  British  supremacy  was  the 
spirit  that  projected  those  showers  of  missiles.  It  was 

195 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

simple  primitive  savagery  with  religion  for  an  excuse 
and  politics  for  a  super-excuse. 

Suppose  we  Nationalists  declare  every  man  who 
uses  anti-Protestant  party  cries,  or  in  any  way  inter- 
feres with  Protestant  demonstrations,  to  be  the  worst 
enemy  of  his  country's  cause.  I  would  begin  the  task 
of  persuasion  with  the  economic  unity  of  Ireland  as 
the  main  argument.  Once  Ireland  ceases  to  be  a  goose 
to  be  plucked,  it  will  be  impossible  to  persuade  the 
English  people  to  charge  themselves  any  longer  with 
responsibility  for  her  internal  affairs.  With  the  ex- 
cess of  Irish  taxation  once  down,  the  burden  of  Irish 
internal  administration  would  have  been  unshouldered 
by  the  British  Parliament.  Home  Rule  without  finan- 
cial reform  is  a  mere  fantasy.  So  long  as  Ireland  con- 
sents to  pay  Great  Britain  three  millions  a  year  clear 
profit  for  being  misgoverned,  so  long  will  the  Unionist 
Party  succeed  in  persuading  the  British  elector  to  make 
no  rash  changes.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  one-tenth  or 
£30,000  is  drawn  out  of  the  city  of  Belfast  alone,  and 
one-fifth,  £60,000,  is  filched  from  the  Unionists  of  Ul- 
ster. The  question  for  Nationalists  is  the  money 
question.  The  country  will  soon  want  to  know  what 
its  political  leaders  are  going  to  do  about  this  appal- 
ling robbery.  No  self-government  worth  having  will 
ever  be  gained  except  by  the  previous  victory  of  a 
practically  united  Ireland  over  British  spoliation. 

I  give  his  analysis  in  detail,  because  it  is  the 
196 


IRELAND 

clear  expression  of  a  wide-spread,  subconscious 
desire  of  Irish  Nationalists  for  a  united  Ireland. 
James  Stephens,  the  charming  Irish  writer 
whose  "Crock  of  Gold"  and  "Here  Are  Ladies" 
are  known  to  American  readers,  says  in  inter- 
preting the  desire  of  Ireland  to  assume  control 
of  her  national  life : 

This  ideal  of  freedom  has  captured  the  imagination 
of  the  race.  It  rides  Ireland  like  a  nightmare,  thwart- 
ing or  preventing  all  civilizing  or  cultural  work  in  this 
country. 

And  the  way  to  obtain  freedom  he  gives : 

The  safeguards  which  Ulster  will  demand,  should 
events  absolutely  force  her  to  it,  may  sound  political  or 
religious,  they  will  be  found  essentially  economic,  and 
the  root  of  them  all  will  be  a  water-tight  friendship 
with  England.  We  must  swallow  England  if  Ulster  is 
to  swallow  us. 

Opposed,  then,  to  the  idea  of  an  Ulster  bit- 
terly hostile  to  any  form  of  union  with  the  rest 
of  Ireland,  we  have  the  plan  of  a  colonial  self- 
government  for  Ireland  inside  the  British  com- 
monwealth, with  a  guaranteed  friendliness  of  re- 
lationship with  England  and  with  Ulster. 

How  to  obtain  this  in  practice?  An  answer 
W7 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

was  given  to  me  by  A.  E.  A.  E.  is  the  greatest 
living  "pure"  Irishman.  By  his  "purity"  I  mean 
that  he  has  lived  his  life  in  Ireland  instead  of 
crossing  the  channel  for  his  career  like  Shaw. 
Many  Irishmen  of  talent  have  transplanted 
themselves  where  fame  and  power  and  the  de- 
lightful contacts  of  a  prosperous  civilization  can 
be  had  on  easy  terms.  But  Paris  and  New  York 
and  London  have  piped  in  vain  to  George  Rus- 
sell. Poet,  dramatist,  journalist,  editor,  painter, 
essayist,  prophet  of  cooperation,  organizer — he 
has  carried  on  his  various  and  vital  activities  in 
his  homeland.  "A.  E.  is  the  one  great  thing  left 
to  us  besides  the  Nelson  Pillar,"  said  James 
Stephens  to  me.  Russell  writes  one  of  the  rich- 
est and  most  perfect  prose  styles  of  the  present 
day,  and  he  has  devoted  that  technic  to  the 
production  of  "The  Homestead,"  the  official 
organ  of  the  Irish  cooperative  movement.  Very 
literally  he  stands  on  Irish  soil,  and  speaks 
to  the  peasant  population.  He  is  fifty-one  years 
old,  with  the  laughter  and  generous  heart  of  a 
boy,  and  he  will  die  with  all  his  fine  hopes  in  him. 
There  is  something  chivalrous  about  him,  some- 
thing young  and  fierce  and  burning.  His  face 

198 


IRELAND 

is  the  face  of  the  portrait  of  William  Morris: 
the  abundant  beard,  the  living  eyes,  the  look  of 
the  mystic  who  puts  his  dreams  into  action.  He 
is  the  same  sort  of  many-handed,  many-minded 
man.  This  is  the  way  out  of  the  English-Ulster- 
Nationalist  muddle  as  he  sees  it  and  as  he  gave 
it  to  me.  To  get  the  full  drive  of  it,  one  must 
see  the  bulky,  shaggy  man,  simpler  and  more 
human  than  most  men,  with  fun  and  vitality  in 
his  talk.  He  said: 

The  Irish  question  is  not  only  national,  but  involves 
questions  of  international  economics.  Irish  linen  is 
sent  over  the  world.  Belfast  ships  are  sold  to  British 
and  American  buyers.  Belfast  ginger-ale  is  sold  in 
California.  Industrial  Ulster  fears  the  laws  that 
would  be  passed  in  a  legislature  where  seventy-five  per 
cent,  of  the  members  would  be  representatives  of  small 
farmers,  men  whose  views  are  parochial  and  who  have 
no  knowledge  of  the  intricate  problems  manufacturers 
engaged  in  international  trade  have  to  solve.  Irish 
Nationalists  ought  to  meet  those  views,  and  prove  to 
Ulster  that  her  trade  interests  would  not  be  preju- 
diced in  an  Irish  parliament,  and  give  real  and  not 
verbal  guarantees  on  this  point.  Protestant  Ulster 
fears  religious  discrimination  in  a  parliament  which 
might  be  three-quarters  Roman  Catholic.  The  most 
powerful  political  organization  in  Ireland,  the  Ancient 

199 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

Order  of  Hibernians,  is  a  sectarian  and  semi-secret 
society  of  which  no  Protestant  can  be  a  member.  Ul- 
ster has  some  reason  to  be  troubled.  When  we  con- 
sider Home  Rule  for  Ireland,  there  are  five  things 
which  must  be  considered: 

1.  The  point  of  view  of  Great  Britain.     Great  Brit- 
ain will  always  rightly  demand  that  Ireland  be  friendly 
to  the  imperial  alliance.     It  is  clearly  impossible  that 
England  should  allow  an  unfriendly  power  to  have  free- 
dom for  independent  action  in  Ireland. 

2.  The    point    of    view    of    the    Irish    Nationalists. 
They  desire  the  political  unity  of  Ireland,  and  will  not 
have  partition.     They  desire  full  Irish  control  over  the 
trade  policy  and  over  taxation.     Until  they  win  that 
full  control,  they  will  have  continuous  agitation  and 
there  will  be  unfriendly  feelings  between  the  two  coun- 
tries. 

The  point  of  view  of  Ulster  in  the  following  matters : 
Ulster  requires  assurances  that  the  self-governing 
Ireland  she  enters  into  will  be  friendly  to  Great  Brit- 
ain. Ulster  carries  on  an  immense  trade  with  Eng- 
land. She  builds  ships  for  England.  She  exports 
linen  and  other  goods.  She  has  orders  from  great 
shipping  firms  and  from  the  admiralty.  These  orders 
would  not  go  to  a  self-governing  Ireland  with  nagging, 
unfriendly  politicians  in  control,  and  Ulster's  trade 
would  decline.  She  could  be  crippled  economically  by 
race  hatreds  erpressed  in  an  Irish  parliament. 

200 


IRELAND 

Ulster  demands  guaranties  both  economic  and  reli- 
gious as  to  her  own  position  in  a  self-governing  Ire- 
land. The  Nationalists  should  meet  Ulster  on  all 
these  points.  It  should  be  demonstrated  to  her  that 
under  Home  Rule  Ireland  will  be  friendly  to  Great 
Britain,  and  just  to  the  religious  and  industrial  life 
of  Ulster.  Nationalists,  in  my  opinion,  should  offer 
Ulster  political  power  equal  to  her  economic  power. 
This  might  be  arranged  partly  by  proportional  repre- 
sentation by  dividing  Ireland  into  twelve  great  constit- 
uencies, so  that  the  Protestants  could  return  members 
from  districts  where  they  are  now  without  a  repre- 
sentative. I  suggest  also  that  the  senate,  or  upper 
house,  should  have  a  veto  power  for  a  certain  number 
of  years  until  the  traditions  of  government  were  fixed, 
say  ten  or  twelve  years,  and  that  a  majority  of  mem- 
bers in  the  senate  for  that  time  should  be  nominated 
by  Ulster.  We  have  a  model  in  the  Canadian  Senate, 
which  is  always  packed  with  a  majority  adverse  to  the 
party  in  power.  This  is  accomplished  by  permitting 
the  party  in  power  to  nominate  vacancies  in  the  senate. 
The  party  coming  in  finds  a  majority  of  the  opposing 
party  in  the  Senate,  and  the  old  party  so  retains  a 
measure  of  control.  The  Irish  senate  might  be  formed 
on  the  assumption  that  Irish  Unionists  had  gone  out 
of  power  and  had  left  the  senate  packed  with  a  two- 
thirds  majority  of  their  party.  Such  a  device  could 
not  be  continued  indefinitely  because  it  is  not  demo- 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

cratic.  But  use  that  method  for  ten  or  twelve  or  even 
fifteen  years  until  the  political  tradition  of  self-gov- 
ernment had  become  fixed  and  Ulster  is  reassured. 
For  the  Irish  question,  we  need  a  psychological  solu- 
tion, because  in  the  years  of  dissension  the  people  have 
tied  their  souls  into  knots.  I  am  sure  the  Ulster  men 
would  not  use  the  power  of  veto  against  national  in- 
terests for  the  period  they  were  given  it. 

Sir  Edward  Carson  has  said  that  what  Ulster 
feared  was  not  bad  law-making.  "What  we  do  fear 
is  oppressive  administration."  They  fear  that  public 
offices  will  be  packed  with  friends  of  the  party  in  power, 
that  the  policy  of  "to  the  victors  belong  the  spoils" 
will  be  practised.  It  is  necessary  to  reassure  Ulster 
that  all  public  posts  would  be  removed  from  jobbery, 
and  that  merit  should  have  its  open  chance  of  win- 
ning promotion.  The  way  to  do  this  is  to  make  all 
government  positions,  all  posts  paid  for  out  of  public 
moneys,  whether  under  boards  of  guardians  or  county 
councils,  part  of  a  national  civil  service,  so  that  job- 
bery on  account  of  religion  or  politics  would  be  im- 
possible. Along  these  lines  of  concession  and  balance 
of  power  I  do  not  regard  the  special  Ulster  problem 
as  insoluble. 

England  should  make  the  Irish  question  a  national 
question  with  herself,  not  a  party  question.  When- 
ever war  is  on,  a  coalition  government  is  formed.  So 
jt  should  be  in  dealing  with  Ireland.  Ireland  should 


IRELAND 

be  treated  by  a  coalition  of  forces  in  England,  con- 
sidering its  Irish  polity  as  a  national  question.  If 
Ireland  were  so  dealt  with,  the  opposition  of  Ulster  to 
settlement  would  lessen. 

The  present  method  of  splitting  Ireland  and  mis- 
governing it  has  led  to  a  reduction  of  its  population  by 
one-half  in  seventy  years.  That  is  bad  for  Ireland 
and  it  is  bad  for  England,  because  Ireland's  exiles  in 
other  countries  develop  bad  feeling  against  England. 

There  are  only  two  ways  to  deal  with  Ireland,  either 
complete  union,  with  absolute  equality,  or  else  com- 
plete Irish  control  of  purely  Irish  affairs.  The  Home 
Rule  bill  as  passed  would  not  settle  the  question,  be- 
cause it  does  not  grant  to  Ireland  the  fixing  of  taxa- 
tion and  the  trade  policy.  Whoever  has  financial  and 
economic  control  of  a  people  fixes  the  character  of  the 
civilization  of  that  people.  There  is  no  British  reason 
for  passing  a  Home  Rule  bill  unless  to  settle  the  ques- 
tion. Either  England  must  control  Ireland  by  making 
Irish  people  into  English  people  in  sentiment  and  cul- 
ture, or  else  she  must  grant  to  Ireland  the  status  of  a 
dominion.  England  must  retain  control  of  military, 
naval,  and  foreign  policy.  Let  Ireland  send  repre- 
sentatives not  to  the  British  Parliament,  but  to  the 
new  imperial  parliament,  which  is  certain  to  be  formed 
after  the  war.  Let  her  pay  her  contribution  to  im- 
perial defense  prepared  by  assessors  appointed  for 
that  purpose  by  Great  Britain  and  the  dominions. 

203 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

What  we  should  aim  at  is  a  kind  of  Sinn  Fein  impe- 
rialism, a  complete  control  of  internal  affairs  and  a 
participation  in  the  empire's  polity. 

The  feeling  for  complete  independence  had  gradu- 
ally been  dying  down  to  a  romantic  feeling  such  as 
Scotchmen  feel  for  Prince  Charlie.  Then  came  the 
Ulster  and  Nationalist  Volunteers,  the  recruiting  cam- 
paign, the  rebellion,  the  executions,  martial  law,  and 
the  old  feeling  rose  up  again.  It  has  become  an  in- 
tolerable nuisance  not  to  have  these  political  questions 
settled.  I  think  myself  too  much  importance  is  at- 
tached to  the  location  of  government,  and  I  have  my- 
self more  hope  in  voluntary  economic  and  cultural 
movements  than  in  acts  of  Parliament.  But  with  the 
present  political  unrest,  there  is  no  fixed  policy  in  the 
economic  life  of  Ireland.  Business  men  wish  a  fixed 
policy.  They  wish  to  have  more  certitude  in  business 
matters.  If  Ireland  was  contented,  it  could  turn  to 
the  problems  of  internal  government.  We  have  over 
two  thousand  national  teachers  paid  less  than  thirty 
pounds  a  year.  The  money  has  been  put  on  the  con- 
stabulary, which  is  over-manned.  A  government  has 
its  choice  of  leaving  people  ignorant  and  spending 
money  on  a  police  force  to  keep  them  in  order  or  of 
educating  them  and  cutting  down  the  constabulary. 
England  plumped  for  the  police.  No  country  can  gov- 
ern another  country  properly,  and  never  has  any 
country  done  so.  Countries  can  unite  with  another  in 

204 


IRELAND 

a  federation,  but  no  country  can  rule  another.  You 
see  the  attempt  made  by  Germans  and  Russians  in 
Poland.  But  it  can  only  succeed  by  exterminating  the 
people  governed.  The  plantations  in  Ireland  were  an 
attempt  at  that. 

In  the  last  one  hundred  years  Ireland  lost  the  power 
to  speak  Gaelic.  Only  600,000  of  her  people  speak 
the  language  to-day.  And  yet  Gaelic  literature  con- 
tains the  dreams  and  soul  of  the  Irish  people  for  two 
thousand  years.  It  is  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  beau- 
tiful literatures  in  Europe.  That  lost  race  memory  is 
a  loss  in  the  dignity  and  spirituality  of  their  life. 
Imagine  the  Greeks  without  Homer.  So  it  has  been 
of  late  with  the  Irish  in  the  loss  of  their  national  lit- 
erature— legends  and  poetry.  The  Irish  do  not  read 
English  literature  nor  have  they  accepted  English  cul- 
ture. That  ancient  literature  of  theirs  ran  like  an 
underground  river  for  the  last  century  till  it  came  well- 
ing up  again  in  Standish  O'Grady,  Stephens,  Yeats, 
and  Synge.  There  is  a  reshaping  of  legendary  tales, 
and  Anglo-Irish  literature  will  be  powerfully  affected. 
Gaelic  schools  have  sprung  up.  O'Grady  and  Synge 
knew  Gaelic.  Padraic  Colum  knows  it.  Stephens  can 
read  it.  MacDonagh  and  Pearse  knew  it.  The  Celtic 
spirit  of  Ireland  is  emerging  in  the  poems  and  tales 
of  modern  Anglo-Celtic  literature  which  are  as  accept- 
able to  Ulster  as  to  the  rest  of  Ireland. 

A.  E.'s  solution,  then,  is  to  clear  the  political 
205 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

question  by  concession  and  guaranty,  to  forget  it, 
and  to  get  down  to  business — the  business  being 
cooperation.  Is  this  the  dream  of  Ireland's  most 
glorious  dreamer,  or  is  there  salvation  that  way? 

I  left  Mr.  Russell,  and  stepped  down-stairs  in 
Plunkett  House  to  the  executive  offices  of  the 
cooperative  movement. 

"While  the  gun-running  was  on,"  said  one  of 
the  cooperative  organizers  to  me,  "  our  move- 
ment was  including  both  parties  in  the  fight. 
Carson's  men  were  arming  themselves,  and  the 
Volunteers  were  arming  against  them.  But 
both  sets  were  working  together  in  our  society. 
Each  had  their  guns  buried  with  which  to  shoot 
the  other,  but  they  were  busy  in  one  creamery, 
working  in  harmony,  and  pooling  their  economic 
life.  They  differ  politically,  but  their  interests 
are  one." 

POVERTY:    THE  REAL  IRISH  QUESTION 

The  real  Irish  question  is  poverty.  Agricul- 
tural labor  receives  less  than  three  dollars  a  week. 
The  tenant  and  owner  and  laborer,  when  av- 
eraged up,  receive  only  $3.50  a  week.  Even  the 
brief  and  dubious  money  gains  of  war-time  are 

206 


IRELAND 

not  an  offset  for  depreciated  "plant,"  and  the 
stock  of  cattle  and  equipment  of  agricultural 
utensils  are  steadily  depreciating  in  these  days  of 
an  increased  export  trade.  The  slums  of  Irish 
cities  are  among  the  worst  in  Europe.  Dublin 
is  known  as  the  "one-room  city,"  because  over 
sixty  thousand  of  her  people  are  congested. 
Industrial  labor  is  underpaid.  Preferential 
through  rates  on  the  railroads  have  given  Irish 
markets  to  English  producers.  Many  of  the 
farms  are  too  small  for  economic  working,  and 
what  there  is  of  them  is  not  good  enough  soil. 
Much  of  the  best  tillage  remains  in  the  hands  of 
the  landlords,  and  is  used  for  grazing  instead  of 
for  the  production  of  crops.  The  hope  of  Ire- 
land lies  in  trade-unionism,  education,  and  coop- 
eration. Ireland's  real  problem  is  to  increase 
production  and  distribute  prosperity. 

I  found  Ireland  stimulated  by  the  report  that 
Henry  Ford  was  planning  a  factory  in  Cork. 
He  was  said  to  have  taken  an  option  on  a  race- 
course, to  plan  the  diversion  of  the  river,  and  to 
guarantee  a  minimum  wage  of  twenty-one  shil- 
lings to  his  workers.  The  story  ran  that  he  had 
visited  his  mother's  birthplace  in  Cork,  and  out 

207 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

of  the  personal  tie  grew  his  plan  to  revive  the 
industrial  life  of  Ireland.  If  the  very  rumor  has 
given  cheer  to  an  underpaid  population,  how 
much  new  hope  will  flow  in  if  Irish-Americans, 
whose  hearts  bleed  for  Ireland,  will  invest  some 
of  their  money  in  Irish  agriculture  and  industry! 
A  few  million  dollars  invested  where  their  heart 
is  will  relieve  a  pressure  on  Ireland,  which  to-day 
is  resulting  in  bad  housing,  under-nourishment, 
overwork,  and  an  undue  proportion  of  pauperism. 
The  real  Irish  question  is  not  solved  by  political 
wrangling  and  chronically  jangled  nerves  inside 
the  island,  or  by  hot  temper  at  long  distance. 
The  Irish- Americans  who  have  planted  the  tradi- 
tion of  Ireland's  wrongs  in  the  United  States 
are  two  generations  out  of  date.  If  they  would 
get  into  touch  with  young  Ireland,  they  would 
find  they  were  chewing  over  stale  grievances 
which  the  march  of  thought  has  long  passed  by. 
They  are  as  much  out  of  date  as  Marxian  so- 
cialists. The  present  campaign  is  based  on 
concrete  issues,  requiring  a  record  of  facts,  and 
organization.  American  money  is  not  needed 
for  nationalistic  propaganda.  It  is  needed  for 
agricultural  and  industrial  development.  Our 

208 


IRELAND 

rich  Irish-Americans  can  do  an  immense  service 
to  Ireland.  They  can  aid  to  set  her  free,  but  not 
by  parliamentary  debates,  speech-making  cam- 
paigns, and  pitiful,  abortive  rebellions.  They 
can  set  her  free  by  standing  security  for  land 
improvement,  better  housing,  the  purchase  of 
machinery  and  fertilizer  plants. 

Had  the  Irish  question  been  settled  (by  the 
Irish  question  I  must  insist  that  I  mean  not  the 
comic-opera  politics  of  gun-running,  but  the 
agricultural  and  industrial  redemption  of  Ire- 
land), this  war  would  have  been  an  easier  task  for 
England.  The  submarine  blockade  would  have 
been  a  minor  factor.  Ireland's  natural  market 
is  England.  England  is  on  an  industrial  basis, 
and  needs  the  food-stuff  of  an  agricultural  coun- 
try like  Ireland.  Every  mistake  England  has 
made  in  the  long  past  in  Ireland  has  cost  her 
severely  in  money  and  lives  in  this  war.  A 
unified,  economically  prosperous  Ireland  could 
have  fed  England,  and  left  her  free  to  raise  her 
army  and  make  munitions,  and  the  submarine 
would  have  been  powerless  to  touch  one  shipload 
of  produce  plying  across  the  Irish  Channel.  As 
it  is,  England  has  had  to  buy  her  supplies  from 

209 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

several  nations,  and  the  long  sea-haul  has  been 
over  open  waters  where  the  submarine  has  sunk 
an  ever-growing  number  of  food-ships.  By 
postponing  the  settlement  of  Ireland's  status  as 
an  autonomous  nation  inside  the  British  com- 
monwealth, England  has  lessened  her  own  food- 
supply  and  lengthened  the  war.  As  long  as 
Ireland  is  politically  in  a  fever,  she  refuses  to 
settle  down  to  her  real  job  of  mastering  the  con- 
ditions of  her  own  life,  which  will  be  determined 
by  better  land  and  more  land,  better  methods  of 
cropping,  fertilizers,  machinery,  labor  supply, 
organization  for  producing  and  selling,  and  rail- 
road facilities.  There  would  be  little  value  in 
writing  one  more  contentious  article  on  Ireland. 
So  with  the  charges  of  a  national  incompetency 
and  inefficiency,  which  those  who  deny  self- 
government  to  Ireland  allege  as  the  ground  for 
their  denial.  They  find  this  incapacity  due  to 
three  defects  in  Irish  character :  laziness,  a  tend- 
ency to  dissension,  and  a  tendency  to  grafting. 
They  say  that  the  Irishman  is  not  a  confirmed 
worker,  that  he  loves  to  wrangle,  and  that  he 
favors  his  friends  at  the  expense  of  his  com- 
munity when  he  is  in  political  office.  The  Irish 

210 


IRELAND 

reply,  "the  penal  laws,  the  ascendancy  system,  the 
union  with  its  anti-Irish  'National  '  schools,  its 
'West  Briton'  ideals,  martial  law,  these  are  the 
causes  of  that  national  incompetency  of  ours." 
One  remembers  in  this  connection  the  famous 
passage  of  Graham  Wallas  in  "The  Great 
Society"  on  the  rights  of  little  nations: 

Athens  during  the  last  quarter  of  the  fifth  century 
B.  c.  was  not  well  governed ;  and  if  the  British  Empire 
had  then  existed,  and  if  Athens  had  been  brought  within 
it,  the  administration  of  the  city  would  undoubtedly 
have  been  improved  in  some  important  respects.  But 
one  does  not  like  to  imagine  the  effect  on  the  intellec- 
tual output  of  the  fifth  century  B.  c.  if  even  the  best 
of  Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling's  public-school  subalterns  had 
stalked  daily  through  the  agora,  snubbing,  as  he  passed, 
that  intolerable  bounder  Euripides,  or  clearing  out  of 
his  way  the  probably  seditious  group  that  were  gath- 
ered round  Socrates. 

The  time  for  argument  on  what  Matthew 
Arnold  called  "barren  logomachies"  is  past.  Ire- 
land will  soon  receive  her  independence  in  the 
British  commonwealth.  The  time  for  action  has 
come,  and  that  action  must  proceed  out  of  Irish- 
men in  productive  agriculture,  efficient  industry, 
and  clean  and  tolerant  government. 

211 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

Among  the  happy  communities  of  the  past 
were  the  Greek  city  states,  the  twelfth-century 
communes,  and  the  pioneering  settlements  of 
America.  They  were  happy  because  the  citizens 
had  a  measure  of  equality  and  because  the  terms 
of  life  included  spiritual  values.  Life  was  not 
organization,  knowledge,  work,  pleasure,  effi- 
ciency, but  through  these  means  developed  an 
excellence  of  its  own  finer  than  the  machinery 
through  which  it  functioned  and  the  material  on 
which  it  worked.  By  the  natural  conditions  of 
the  country  and  the  temperament  of  the  people 
Ireland  is  fitted  to  be  one  of  the  happy  communi- 
ties of  human  history  instead  of  a  land  of  sorrows. 
Peasant  proprietorship  in  a  fertile  country 
among  a  people  of  social  and  imaginative  nature 
ought  to  take  the  curse  from  life,  because  life 
under  such  conditions  offers  equality,  intercourse, 
prosperity,  and  a  free  play  for  spiritual  values. 

No  old  time  battle-cry  or  politico-economic 
dogma  can  survive  in  the  light  of  to-day's  facts. 
Landlordism  was  the  old  cry,  and  it  expressed  a 
hideous  injustice.  But  "if  all  rent  were  abol- 
ished in  Ireland  to-morrow  the  chief  difficulties 
of  the  Irish  farmer  would  remain  what  they  are. 


IRELAND 

It  would  not  raise  the  price  of  anything  the 
farmer  has  to  sell,  or  increase  the  produce  of  an 
acre  of  his  land."  "The  long  war  over  the  land, 
which  resulted  in  the  transference  of  the  land 
from  landlord  to  cultivator,  has  advanced  us  part 
of  the  way,  but  the  land  acts  offered  no  complete 
solution.  We  were  assured  by  hot  enthusiasts 
of  the  magic  of  proprietorship,  but  Ireland  has 
not  tilled  a  single  acre  more  since  the  land  acts 
were  passed.  The  welfare  of  Ireland  depends 
mainly  upon  the  welfare  of  the  Irish  farmer." 

So  it  is  worth  considering  his  case  in  detail.  A 
clear  statement  of  it  is  given  by  A.  E.,  who  is 
one  of  the  three  men  at  the  head  of  the  cooperative 
movement.  He  says: 

The  small  farmer  is  the  typical  Irish  countryman. 
The  average  area  of  an  Irish  farm  is  twenty-five  acres 
or  thereabouts.  We  can  imagine  to  ourselves  an  Irish 
farmer  with  twenty-five  acres  to  till,  lord  of  a  herd 
of  four  or  five  cows,  a  drift  of  sheep,  a  litter  of  pigs, 
perhaps  a  mare  and  foal :  call  him  Patrick  Malony  and 
accept  him  as  symbol  of  his  class.  .  .  .  He  is  fruitful 
enough.  There  is  no  race  suicide  in  Ireland.  His 
agriculture  is  largely  traditional.  His  butter,  his 
eggs,  his  cattle,  horses,  pigs,  and  sheep  are  sold  to 
local  dealers.  He  might  be  described  almost  as  the 

313 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

primitive  economic  caveman,  the  darkness  of  his  cave 
unillumined  by  any  ray  of  general  principles.  .  .  . 
The  culture  of  the  Gaelic  poets  and  story-tellers,  while 
not  often  actually  remembered,  still  lingers  like  a  fra- 
grance about  his  mind.  We  ponder  over  Patrick,  his 
race,  and  his  country,  brooding  whether  there  is  the 
seed  of  a  Pericles  in  Patrick's  loins.  Could  we  carve  an 
Attica  out  of  Ireland? 

Before  Patrick  can  become  the  father  of  a  Pericles, 
before  Ireland  can  become  an  Attica,  Patrick  must  be 
led  out  of  his  economic  cave.  .  .  .  Our  poets  sang  of 
a  united  Ireland,  but  the  unity  they  sang  of  was  only 
a  metaphor.  It  mainly  meant  separation  from  an- 
other country.  Individualism,  fanatically  centering 
itself  on  its  family  and  family  interests,  interfered  on 
public  boards  to  do  jobs  in  the  interests  of  its  kith 
and  kin.  The  cooperative  movement  connects  with  liv- 
ing links  the  home,  the  center  of  Patrick's  being,  to 
the  nation,  the  circumference  of  his  being.  ...  I  be- 
lieve the  fading  hold  the  heavens  have  over  the  world 
is  due  to  the  neglect  of  the  economic  basis  of  spiritual 
life.  The  cooperative  movement  alone  of  all  move- 
ments in  Ireland  has  aspired  to  make  an  economic  soli- 
darity in  Ireland. 

The  social  and  economic  service  of  coopera- 
tion is  this:  it  enables  farmers  to  own  and 
use  modern  machinery,  to  buy  feeding  material, 
manures,  and  seeds,  and  to  construct  fertilizer 


IRELAND 

plants  at  low  cost,  standard  quality,  and  on  large 
scale.  It  gives  control  over  markets,  and  slowly 
improves  the  transportation  facilities  for  produce. 
It  sells  to  advantage  through  its  own  agents 
instead  of  through  a  long  circuit  of  middlemen. 
It  gives  a  system  for  borrowing  money  at  a  lower 
interest  and  for  a  longer  term.  It  pools  the  ideas 
of  many  men  and  gives  an  interchange  and  inter- 
action of  ideas,  leading  to  close,  hard  economic 
thinking,  invention  and  discovery,  and  a  wide- 
spread intellectual  fertilization.  In  one  place 
where  a  creamery  was  nearly  started,  the  cooper- 
ators  report,  the  whole  scheme  was  destroyed  by 
the  announcement  of  a  leader  of  public  opinion 
that  "every  pound  of  butter  must  be  made  on 
Nationalist  principles  or  not  at  all."  But  the 
work  of  uncoiling  ancient  grievance  from  con- 
structive enterprise  goes  on,  and  prosperity  cures 
ill  will.  You  will  see  in  a  single  village  the 
cooperative  societies  supplying  seeds,  manures, 
and  machinery  to  the  farmers,  establishing 
credits,  marketing  eggs  gathered  by  the  women, 
running  a  station  to  improve  the  breed  of  poul- 
try, conducting  a  knitting  industry,  and  selling 
groceries  and  provisions. 

215 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

There  comes  a  limit  of  saturation,  and  coop- 
eration has  probably  sucked  up  as  many  peasants 
as  its  present  capacity  admits.  That  capacity 
must  be  increased  if  cooperation  is  to  increase 
in  the  next  twenty  years  at  the  rate  of  the  last 
twenty.  More  and  better  land,  now  held  by 
landlords  for  grazing,  must  be  freed  for  tillage. 
The  existent  railways  must  provide  better  facili- 
ties for  farmers.  A  system  of  spur  railways  to 
mine-pit  heads  and  of  light  railways  through 
neglected  districts  must  be  established.  The 
village  of  Belmullet  in  western  Mayo  is  forty- 
six  miles  from  a  railroad.  There  are  anthracite 
seams  a  few  miles  out  from  Dublin.  Seven  miles 
of  light  railway,  at  a  cost  of  $1,250,000,  would 
connect  the  mine  with  its  market,  and  reduce  the 
cost  of  that  coal  from  forty-three  or  forty-five 
shillings  to  twenty-five  shillings.  One  of  the 
young  Irish  leaders  says,  "Any  extensive  work- 
ing of  Irish  coal  or  copper  is  contingent  on  the 
assent  of  the  vast  British  mining  interest  to  Irish 
competition."  The  creation  of  machinery  and 
fertilizer  must  be  undertaken  on  a  larger  scale. 
In  short,  production  must  be  increased  by  the 
application  of  capital.  Can  that  capital  be 

216 


IRELAND 

found?  Will  it  be  by  Irish  parliamentary  grant, 
by  Irish  taxation,  or  by  foreign  investment,  or 
will  the  cooperators  themselves  be  willing  to  lay 
aside  a  percentage  of  their  profit  for  the  purpose 
of  extending  the  movement  till  it  has  embraced 
all  Ireland?  A  solution  must  be  found,  for  a 
movement  either  grows  or  dies. 

The  present  situation  is  abnormal.  The 
estimated  value  of  Irish  exports  to  Great  Britain 
for  1916  is  over  two  hundred  million  dollars' 
worth.  Before  the  war  they  averaged  about  one 
hundred  and  forty  millions.  A  clear  gain  in 
money  of  sixty  million  dollars  has  flowed  in  to 
Irish  farmers.  Fish,  butter,  and  eggs  have  at 
times  been  held  up  for  lack  of  shipping,  but  that 
is  because  the  shipping  has  been  destroyed  on 
other  hauls,  which  would  have  been  unnecessary 
if  Irish  agriculture  were  developed  up  to  capac- 
ity. 

Ireland  sends  live  stock  and  the  produce  of 
live  stock  to  Great  Britain.  She  sends  sheep  and 
mutton,  bacon,  ham,  live  pigs,  poultry,  butter, 
and  eggs.  Next  to  the  production  of  live  stock, 
the  marketing  of  butter  is  the  most  important 
industry.  The  farmer  has  received  increased 

217 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

prices  to  account  for  most  of  this  gain,  but  the 
production  also  has  been  somewhat  increased. 
Some  of  this  extra  money  has  gone  for  increased 
cost  of  production,  feeding  stuffs,  and  fertilizer. 
The  rest  of  the  money  has  been  banked. 

"The  last  two  years  are  the  most  phenomenal 
in  Ireland's  history,"  says  the  department  of 
agriculture,  and  they  tell  me  that  "the  farmer 
has  come  off  in  a  gold  coach"  during  these  war 
months.  Plunkett  House,  headquarters  of  the 
cooperators,  tells  me  that  there  is  undoubtedly 
more  money  return,  but  that  the  farmer's  live- 
stock has  been  sold,  and  must  be  replaced,  and 
that  his  plant  has  deteriorated,  so  that  he  is  n't 
any  better  off  in  productive  wealth.  Such  a 
thing  as  agreement  on  any  matter  in  Ireland  is 
not  obtainable  in  the  present  atmosphere  of  pas- 
sion. It  is  probable  that  the  law  of  gravitation 
violates  the  Sinn  Fein  principle  of  self-help,  and 
that  the  ethics  of  the  gospel  are  under  suspicion 
in  four  counties  of  Ulster.  "What  too  many 
people  in  Ireland  mistake  for  thoughts  are  feel- 
ings. Passion  has  become  dominant  in  our  pol- 
itics." But  in  the  end  Ireland  must  be  ruled  not 
by  rhetoric,  but  by  "first-class  thinking  on  the 


IRELAND 

life  of  the  countryman.  The  genius  of  rural  life 
has  not  yet  appeared." 

The  Irish  situation  is  the  heritage  of  landlord- 
ism, usury,  famine,  land  legislation,  grazing,  emi- 
gration. When  these  had  operated,  Ireland  was 
reduced  in  population,  and  the  good  land  was  let 
out  in  vast  grazing  tracts,  and  the  poorer  land 
was  crowded  by  farmers.  These  crowded  areas 
are  called  congested  districts.  The  congested- 
districts  board  exists  for  the  purpose  of  cutting 
those  areas  up  into  holdings,  enlarging  existing 
holdings  till  they  become  a  "paying  proposition" 
instead  of  uneconomic,  making  roads,  and  creat- 
ing new  holdings.  This  is  a  long  job,  and  will 
consume  many  years  before  completion.  It  re- 
quires both  time  and  money,  and  there  is  a  short- 
age of  money,  as  the  British  Government  has  shut 
down  on  the  extension  of  financial  help. 

"Counties  like  Meath,  with  the  richest  land  in 
Ireland,  are  under  grass  and  virtually  destitute 
of  all  life  save  the  bullocks  which  graze  in  their 
fields." 

The  total  cultivated  area  of  Ireland  is  2,400,- 
000  acres.  In  pasture  and  grazed  mountain 
land  there  remain  12,500,000  acres.  Live  stock 

219 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

is  to  crop  production  as  four  is  to  three.  There 
were  500,000  acres  in  wheat  in  1851.  In  1914 
there  were  36,000,  a  decrease  of  92/4  per  cent. 
The  total  decrease  in  tillage  has  been  seventy  per 
cent.  Eleven  per  cent,  of  Ireland  is  now  arable 
land,  and  sixty-four  per  cent,  hay  and  pasture. 
Eleven  per  cent,  of  France  is  hay  and  pasture, 
and  fifty-two  per  cent,  arable  land. 

The  land  acts  are  permissive,  not  compulsory, 
and  the  landlord  can  refuse  to  sell.  He  does  so 
refuse,  and  continues  to  hold  the  land  for  graz- 
ing. Compulsory  purchase  was  proposed  in  a 
bill,  but  the  landlords'  convention  rejected  the 
bill,  and  the  British  Government  was  unwilling 
to  press  a  contentious  measure. 

While  I  was  in  Ireland  the  Earl  of  Meath  had 
his  estate  agent  write  in  reply  to  a  request  that 
he  allow  his  uncultivated  land  to  be  parceled  out 
for  the  production  of  food: 

His  lordship  is  in  sympathy  with  the  general  idea 
that  more  land  should,  during  the  war,  be  brought  under 
cultivation  for  the  production  of  food.  Lord  Meath 
has  not  a  large  quantity  of  land  in  Bray,  and  he  would 
be  glad  to  know  if  others,  who  may  have  more,  have 
been  approached  by  your  society  and,  if  not,  why  this 


IRELAND 

has  not  been  done.  He  considers  that  the  supply  of 
milk  in  a  populous  district  like  Bray  is  a  more  pressing 
question  than  that  of  any  other  kind  of  food,  and  that 
any  diminution  in  grazing  lands  would  inevitably  raise 
its  price.  For  these  reasons  Lord  Meath  cannot  see 
his  way  to  accede  to  your  request. 

In  his  case  the  request  had  been  made  that  a 
portion  of  land  be  given  to  meet  the  national 
need.  But  the  same  refusal  is  widely  met  when 
compensation  is  offered.  By  a  liberal  use  of 
state  credit  the  farmer  has  got  back  some  of  the 
land  which  was  taken  away  from  his  grandfather. 
He  has  paid  a  fair  price  for  purchase,  which  is 
from  twenty  to  forty  per  cent,  below  his  old 
rents.  One  farmer,  for  instance,  now  pays  four- 
teen pounds  a  year  toward  the  purchase  of  his 
holding  where  he  used  to  pay  eighteen  pounds  in 
rent.  But  the  process  is  slow  and  partial.  So 
in  Ireland  to-day  there  is  still  an  unappeased  land 
hunger.  Still  the  holdings  are  often  too  small 
and  too  poor.  Still  half  the  land  is  held  by  land- 
lords, and  agriculture  is  crippled.  The  Irish 
radicals  write  of  the  late  Home  Rule  Bill: 

There  is  no  provision  for  ever  transferring  land  pur- 
chase in  Ireland  to  the  control  of  the  Irish  Parliament. 

221 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

It  will  be  at  least  eighty  years  before  land  purchase 
is  completed. 

There  are  five  million  good  acres  which  ought 
to  be  brought  back  under  tillage  at  once.  If  any 
of  this  land  could  be  held  by  the  farmer  on  a  full 
year's  lease,  it  would  come  under  the  terms  of 
the  "agricultural  holding"  acts,  and  automatic- 
ally would  be  open  for  tillage.  But  the  land- 
lord lets  it  out  for  grazing  for  eleven  months,  and 
then  snaps  it  back  for  the  last  month,  so  as  to 
evade  the  provisions  of  the  law.  This  "eleven 
months'  lease"  is  as  noisome  in  Ireland  as  the  in- 
junction in  America.  As  there  is  an  immediate 
market  for  cattle,  the  small  farmers  bid  against 
one  another  for  grazing  land.  They  cannot  af- 
ford to  wait  for  the  slower  greater  market  for 
grain  which  would  be  theirs  if  they  boycotted  the 
grazing  lands  till  the  owners  sold  them  for  tillage. 
Nothing  short  of  a  mandatory  state  policy  will 
cure  this  primary  cause  of  Irish  poverty. 

Every  statement  of  an  economic  situation  re- 
quires careful  qualification.  Ireland  has  made  a 
steady  gain  since  the  ebb-tide  of  the  1850's.  Her 
deposits  and  cash  balances  in  joint-stock  banks, 
post-office  and  trustee  savings-banks,  were  re- 


IRELAND 

cently  $410,000,000  as  against  $145,000,000  in 
1871.  She  held  $235,000,000  in  government 
stocks  two  years  ago.  The  business  of  the  rail- 
ways nearly  doubled  in  thirty  years,  though  much 
of  this  money  went  into  English  hands,  and  the 
railway  system  is  imperfect  and  u  minified.  In 
1871  her  emigration  was  71,000;  in  1914,  20,- 
000.  No  picture  of  degeneration  fits  the  facts. 
But  the  reconstructive  legislation  and  state 
grants  and  credit  system  have  brought  Ireland 
only  half-way.  A  bolder,  more  drastic  program 
must  now  be  adopted  if  she  is  to  overcome  pov- 
erty and  become  the  productive  country  which 
is  her  true  destiny.  Machinery  and  fertilizer 
must  be  purchased  on  a  far  larger  scale,  the  land 
must  be  opened  up,  a  better  system  of  cropping 
used,  factories  for  agricultural  plant  must  be  es- 
tablished, housing  must  be  bettered.  Faith  in 
her  future  is  what  Ireland  needs  from  her  friends, 
and  money  as  the  expression  of  that  faith.  The 
labor-  and  trade-unionists  of  Ireland  have  faced 
this  situation,  and  their  conference  stated: 

We  demand  that  steps  be  taken  immediately  to  bring 
under  cultivation  large  areas  of  the  grazing  lands — 
by  direct  labor  on  an  extensive  scale  under  the  Depart- 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

ment;  by  empowering  County  Councils  to  proceed  on 
similar  lines;  by  calling  upon  all  local  authorities  to 
utilize  every  acre  of  suitable  land  within  their  areas 
now  lying  idle  for  spade  cultivation,  for  potatoes  and 
vegetables;  by  offering  advances  of  capital  to  local 
bodies  where  necessary  to  finance  these  schemes;  to 
make  unprofitable  by  punitive  taxation  the  keeping  out 
of  cultivation  of  excessive  proportions  of  agricultural 
holdings,  and  that  the  Government  grant  facilities  for 
the  manufacture  and  importation  of  agricultural  ma- 
chinery and  fertilizers  and  their  distribution  at  actual 
cost. 

The  Irish  party's  committee  on  food  supply 
protests  against  the  delays  of  the  past,  and  urges 
that  the  congested-districts  board  and  estates 
commissioners  should  be  equipped  to  proceed 
with  the  permanent  division  of  grass-lands.  It 
advocates  compulsory  tillage.  This  would  mean 
that  the  Government  demands  that  the  holder  till 
a  percentage,  say  from  ten  to  twenty-five  per 
cent,  (later  to  be  increased)  of  his  land.  The 
small  farmer  would  thus  be  required  to  till  six  or 
seven  acres  instead  of  four  or  five. 

His  reply  will  be,  "Where  can  I  get  the  labor? 
The  disease  which  has  attacked  our  great  pop- 
ulations here  and  in  America  is  a  discontent  with 

gt* 


IRELAND 

rural  life."  In  less  than  fifty  years  300,000  agri- 
cultural laborers  have  left  the  Irish  fields  for 
American  factories.  Till  the  war  fifty  thousand 
Irishmen  every  year  went  to  England  and  Scot- 
land for  the  harvest.  (That  fell  to  13,000  in  the 
first  year  of  the  war.)  The  department  of  agri- 
culture reports,  "There  has  been  for  many  years 
a  marked  scarcity  of  agricultural  laborers  in  Ire- 
land." In  1871  there  were  446,000  male  agri- 
cultural laborers  and  62,000  female.  In  1911 
there  were  fewer  than  200,000  male,  and  there 
were  only  4000  females. 

The  reason  is  plain:  better  wages  are  obtain- 
able elsewhere.  In  1914  the  agricultural  wage 
of  Ireland  had  a  cash  value  of  eleven  shillings  and 
threepence  a  week.  Why  did  not  the  farmer 
pay  more?  He  was  not  able  to.  The  average 
cash  return  to  all  classes  connected  with  the  farm, 
farmer-owner,  farmer-tenant,  and  laborer,  when 
added  together  and  averaged,  was  only  twelve 
shillings  and  ninepence,  so  the  farmer  was  pay- 
ing all  he  could  afford. 

Only  higher  production,  through  better  land, 
machinery,  and  cooperation,  can  solve  the  wage 
of  the  farm-hand.  The  laborers  will  never  be 

225 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

half  so  numerous  as  farmers,  for  Ireland  is  "a 
country  of  small  holdings,  where  the  farmer  and 
his  family  are  themselves  laborers."  The  co- 
operative ownership  of  expensive  machinery  will 
increasingly  lead  to  the  communal  employment 
of  the  laborer  as  a  skilled  mechanic  by  the  co- 
operative community.  If  the  belief  of  the  co- 
operators  comes  true,  that  in  half  a  century  the 
whole  business  of  rural  Ireland  (and  that  is 
eighty  per  cent,  of  Ireland)  will  be  done  coopera- 
tively, then  we  have  the  solution  for  the  present 
scarcity  of  labor.  "The  agricultural  laborers 
will  gradually  become  skilled  mechanics,  able  to 
direct  threshers,  binders,  diggers,  cultivators,  and 
new  implements  we  have  no  conception  of.  They 
will  be  members  of  the  society,  sharing  in  its 
profits  in  proportion  to  their  wages,  even  as  the 
farmer  will  in  proportion  to  his  trade.  The 
laborers  will  form  societies  for  collective  farming 
as  in  Rumania  and  Italy."  It  is  possible  that  in 
this  direction  may  lie  the  solution  not  only  for  the 
laborer,  but  for  the  bringing  of  Ireland  back  to 
tillage,  for  land  purchase  is  doubtless  dead. 
Neither  England  nor  Ireland  will  have  any 
money  for  land  purchase  after  this  war.  The 

226 


IRELAND 

money  will  go  into  industry  and  for  the  wages  of 
industrial  workers.  But  by  letting  out  the  great 
grazing  estates  to  groups  of  laborers,  the  produc- 
tive power  of  Ireland  will  be  increased. 

There  is  no  quick  way  through  the  tangle. 
The  Irish  question  can  be  solved  only  by  the  peo- 
ple themselves.  Can  they  create  a  good  life  for 
their  community  ?  Can  they  conduct  a  clean  gov- 
ernment? Can  they  release  productive  power  in 
the  nation,  so  that  pauperism  and  ignorance  and 
dissension  will  decrease?  Can  they  lift  clear  of 
their  past,  forget  injustice  and  misery,  and  es- 
tablish a  cooperative  commonwealth?  With  the 
coming  of  autonomy  Ireland  will  begin  to  face 
her  real  problem. 


CHAPTER  V 

SOCIAL  STUDIES 
WHAT  OF   ENGLAND? 

To  feel  the  spirit  of  a  nation  at  war  is  one  thing 
and  an  easy  thing.  You  can  not  help  being 
caught  into  the  current  of  their  will  and  purpose. 
But  to  convey  that  spirit  to  your  busy  friends 
three  thousand  miles  away  is  a  much  harder  thing. 
I  have  been  going  around  from  man  to  man  in 
England,  trying  to  get  just  that  phrase  and  sum- 
mary which  would  make  the  British  response 
clear  to  our  people.  Each  one  of  these  men,  who 
has  been  good  enough  to  pause  in  his  war  work 
to  help  me,  has  given  a  flash  of  the  island  spirit. 

Lord  Northcliffe  said  to  me: 

"No  one  will  accuse  me  of  failing  to  criticize 
the  mistakes  of  the  British  army  in  the  early 
months.  But  I  want  you  to  know  that  to-day 
we  have  the  finest  fighting-machine  in  the  world. 
It  has  taken  time  to  build  it,  but  now  we  have  it. 
Tell  your  people  that." 

228 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

Viscount  Bryce  said  to  me: 

"The  British  people  are  unanimous  as  they 
have  never  been  before." 

The  police  commissioner  of  Scotland  Yard,  in 
charge  of  the  secret  service,  said  to  me: 

"Have  you  noticed  in  talking  with  the  pacifists 
how  discouraged  they  seem?  They  have  no  sense 
of  a  growing  movement.  They  are  disheartened 
because  the  great  mass  of  the  British  people  are 
not  supporting  them."  Then  he  turned  to  his 
telephone  and  gave  instructions  to  call  up  Ports- 
mouth and  find  out  the  time  of  arrival  of  the 
hospital-ship.  His  wounded  son  was  due  home 
from  France. 

G.  K.  Chesterton  said  to  me : 

"Democracy  is  on  the  march."  His  brother  is 
a  private  in  the  ranks. 

Lloyd-George  talked  with  me  of  the  welfare 
work  carried  on  for  the  ministry  of  munitions  by 
Seebohm  Rowntree,  who  has  turned  from  his  own 
factories  of  six  thousand  workers  to  care  for  the 
health  of  a  million  government  employees. 

"Here,"  said  Lloyd-George,  "is  the  greatest 
attempt  ever  made  by  a  government  to  surround 
the  lives  of  the  workers  with  safeguards  for  their 

229 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

health  and  well-being.  And  it  was  the  making 
of  munitions  that  brought  us  to  it.  It  was  war 
and  shells.  It  is  always  true  that  humanity  has 
to  descend  into  hell  in  order  to  rise  again  the 
third  day.  It  is  only  through  hell  that  it  can 
achieve  its  resurrection." 

But  not  all  these  distinguished  men  together 
have  quite  revealed  the  central  flame,  and  then 
suddenly  it  was  shown  to  me  by  a  girl.  She  is  a 
wage-earner  in  London,  and  every  day  on  her 
way  to  her  office  she  passes  Fishmongers'  Hall 
by  London  Bridge.  This  ancient  place  has  been 
converted  into  a  military  hospital.  To  the  house 
surgeon  she  wrote  this  letter : 

Dear  Sir,  I  am  taking  the  liberty  to  write  to  you 
to  ask  if  it  is  true  that  often  a  soldier's  wound  could 
be  the  easier  and  the  better  healed  were  there  plenty 
of  skin  available  to  graft  on  to  the  wound?  I  have 
been  told  that  many  wounds  are  badly  healed  because 
the  doctors  cannot  get  skin.  If  this  is  so,  I  would  con- 
sider it  an  honor  to  be  allowed  to  put  myself  at  your 
disposal  at  any  time  in  order  that  my  skin  might  be 
taken  to  graft  on  to  a  wound;  I  am  prepared  to  give 
as  much  as  would  be  practicable  to  take  from  me. 

This  is  no  impulsive  movement  on  my  part.  I  am 
obliged  to  come  to  town  each  day  to  earn  my  own  liv- 

230 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

ing,  and  am  therefore  debarred  from  working  for  the 
soldiers  as  other  girls  of  my  own  age  are  doing.  I  have 
two  brothers  fighting,  and  for  their  sakes  I  feel  I 
must  do  something.  I  am  writing  to  your  hospital 
because  I  know  of  nowhere  else;  if  you  can  find  no 
use  for  my  services  I  shall  be  obliged  if  you  will  kindly 
inform  me  where  I  could  go. 

WHY   THEY  WILL  WIN 

England  is  at  war  en  masse,  and  the  proof 
of  it  is  not  that  she  has  raised  an  army.  Any 
country  can  raise  an  army  if  it  has  to.  The  proof 
of  it  is  that  she  has  changed  a  cherished  habit. 
That  means  a  spiritual  change.  It  is  a  lot  harder 
to  break  up  a  habit  than  it  is  to  fight  an  enemy. 
The  fact  that  two  million  persons  are  saving 
money  to  give  to  the  Government  for  carrying  on 
the  war  is  the  clearest  single  proof  that  the  Eng- 
lish nation  is  at  war.  By  temperament  the  Eng- 
lish are  a  colonizing,  adventurous  people.  That 
means  they  are  an  open-handed  people,  to  whom 
the  careful  ways  of  thrift  are  distasteful.  Then, 
too,  they  are  a  race  of  individualists,  doing  what 
they  like  with  their  own — a  race  to  whom  collec- 
tive effort  is  a  bore.  But  they  violated  their  in- 
stinct in  order  to  win  this  war.  For  the  English 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

were  free  spenders,  and  it  revealed  more  devo- 
tion in  them  to  raise  two  hundred  million  dollars 
in  individual  subscriptions  than  it  did  to  raise 
five  million  men  in  recruiting. 

One  has  to  show  the  English  effort  in  these 
broken  bits  and  flashes  rather  than  by  any  one 
overmastering  display.  That  is  because  Eng- 
land is  a  tangled,  self-willed  democracy,  of  a  vast 
variety  of  purpose.  But  when  England  began 
to  alter  its  life,  to  sacrifice  what  was  precious  and 
ancient,  then  it  became  clear  that  she  had  com- 
mitted herself  beyond  recall,  that  she  was  moving 
to  an  end  beyond  defeat. 

The  appeal  for  war  savings  was  a  general  ap- 
peal made  to  all  classes  of  the  country.  It  put 
money  into  the  hands  of  the  Government  with 
which  to  wage  war.  That  money  is  spent  for 
production  by  the  nation  instead  of  being  spent 
for  consumption  by  the  individual  person.  The 
terms  of  the  arrangement  gave  to  the  "saver" 
security,  an  excellent  rate  of  interest,  and  the  op- 
portunity of  withdrawal  at  any  time.  This  use 
of  money  frees  labor  from  "luxury"  work  to  nec- 
essary work.  The  man  grooves  a  big  gun  in- 
stead of  pulling  candy.  The  woman  makes 

232 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

shells  instead  of  fancy  waists.  This  release  of 
labor  concentrates  the  national  effort  on  the  work 
of  victory  instead  of  leaving  the  workers  dis- 
persed among  parasitic  trades. 

The  heart  of  the  war-savings  scheme  is  this: 
you  buy  a  "war-savings  certificate"  for  fifteen 
shillings  and  sixpence.  In  five  years  the  Gov- 
ernment will  give  you  a  pound  for  it.  Less  than 
four  dollars  has  become  five  dollars.  Of  course 
the  worker  cannot  make  an  investment  of  fifteen 
shillings  and  sixpence  at  one  time.  So  he  joins 
an  association  in  his  school,  factory,  store,  or 
club,  and  subscribes  his  penny  or  sixpence  each 
week.  These  associations  are  like  our  fraternal 
organizations.  They  appeal  to  the  social  sense 
of  the  group.  There  are  other  forms  of  war  sav- 
ing, such  as  exchequer  bonds,  but  this  system  of 
certificate  is  the  popular  way.  It  is  cooperative 
investment. 

If  the  person  does  not  belong  to  an  associa- 
tion, he  receives  a  war-savings  card,  with  thirty- 
one  spaces  on  it,  each  for  a  sixpenny  stamp. 
He  buys  the  stamps  at  the  post-office  as  often  as 
he  can.  When  the  card  is  full,  he  hands  it  in, 
and  receives  a  certificate,  worth  fifteen  shillings 

333 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

and  sixpence,  and  good  for  a  pound  at  the  end  of 
five  years. 

Such  speakers  as  Lennox  Gilmour  of  the  na- 
tional war-savings  committee  go  around  the  coun- 
try addressing  men  and  women  in  factories,  and 
boys  and  girls  in  schools.  This  is  one  of  the 
stories  used  by  Mr.  Gilmour  in  his  campaign: 

"I  met  in  a  railway  carriage  a  man  who  had 
just  returned  from  the  front.  He  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Army  Service  Corps,  and  I  got  into 
conversation  with  him.  In  the  course  of  our  talk 
he  said: 

'  'I  am  one  of  those  chaps  that  always  like  to 
prove  what  I  say.  Would  you  mind  looking  at 
my  pay-book.' 

"This  in  support  of  some  assertion  he  had 
made.  I  replied  that  I  should  be  delighted,  and 
I  looked  at  his  pay-book.  The  last  entry  was 
three  hundred  francs,  which  he  had  drawn  for  his 
holiday;  and  immediately  in  front  of  that  there 
was  an  entry,  'War-savings  certificates  £10  Is. 
6d.,'  which  is  the  price  of  thirteen  war-savings 
certificates. 

"I  said,  'I  see  you  have  some  of  these  war-sav- 
ings certificates.' 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

'Yes,  and  I  am  going  to  get  some  more.' 

"  'How  did  you  get  these?' 

"  'Well,'  he  said,  'we  get  them  in  the  squad- 
ron.' 

'  'Did  any  other  chaps  get  them?' 

"  'Oh,  yes,  they  did.' 

"I  said,  'How  did  your  squadron  do?' 

'Well,'  he  said,  'my  squadron — it  was  given 
out  on  parade  that  it  was  the  backbone  of  the 
whole  lot.' 

"  'What,'  I  asked,  'does  that  mean?' 

"  'Well,'  he  said,  'I  will  tell  you.  There  are 
five  squadrons  in  our  base  camp,  and  mine  did 
the  best  of  the  lot.' 

"  'What  did  it  do?' 

'There  are,'  he  said,  'a  hundred  and  fifty  men 
in  a  squadron,  and  we  contributed  £2239.' 

"  'What,'  I  asked,  'did  the  other  four  squad- 
rons do?' 

"He  laughed.     'They  did  £200  among  them.' 

"  'Well,'  I  said,  'there  is  always  an  explanation 
for  everything.  Why  did  your  squadron  do  so 
well,  and  why  did  the  other  squadrons  do  so 
poorly?' 

"  'You  see,'  he  replied,  'our  major  was  keen, 
285 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

and  he  spoke  to  every  one  of  us  and  told  us  what 
we  ought  to  do.' 

"I  asked,  'And  the  other  majors,  what  did  they 
do?J 

"  'They  handed  out  the  leaflets.'  " 

That  is  the  secret  of  the  success  which  has  at- 
tended this  evangelistic  campaign.  It  is  the  per- 
sonal appeal,  friend  speaking  to  friend.  And 
the  motive  for  giving  is  rendered  in  the  head- 
lines of  the  pamphlets  and  posters:  "Save  for 
England."  "Save  for  your  country." 

In  North  Nibley,  one  of  the  smallest  villages 
in  Gloucestershire,  the  inhabitants  subscribed 
eighty  dollars  in  a  fortnight. 

Wigstan  Magna,  in  Leicestershire,  is  in  the  cen- 
ter of  the  hosiery  and  boot-making  district.  One 
of  the  factories  has  between  three  hundred  and 
four  hundred  operatives.  That  factory  pur- 
chased two  hundred  certificates  in  one  week. 

Yarmouth  has  fifty  associations  and  four  thou- 
sand members,  and  has  subscribed  ten  thousand 
dollars.  This  city  lies  on  the  east  coast,  where 
the  Zeppelins  have  stimulated  the  civilian  con- 
sciousness. 

It  was  out  from  Grimsby  where  the  fishing- 
836 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

trawlers  have  been  lost  by  mines  and  submarines. 
The  answer  of  Grimsby  was  made  by  seventy- 
three  war-savings  associations.  In  one  week 
4600  certificates  were  purchased. 

At  an  East  End  factory  in  London  123  girls 
joined  the  savings  crusade  in  a  single  week. 
Only  two  girls  are  not  members.  In  three 
months  the  girls  saved  over  $250.  They  did  it 
by  chipping  in  their  threepenny  and  sixpenny 
bit  each  week. 

Norwich  paid  into  the  post-office  $75,000  in  six 
weeks. 

The  boot  and  shoe  operatives  of  Northampton 
are  subscribing  five  thousand  dollars  a  week. 

Keithley,  in  Yorkshire,  is  the  heart  of  the 
woolen  trade.  It  makes  uniforms  for  the  Rus- 
sian army.  It  saves  five  thousand  dollars  a  week, 
an  average  of  six  shillings  and  eightpence  for 
every  inhabitant. 

The  domestic  servants  of  Gillingham  in  Kent 
have  united  in  a  war-savings  association.  This 
reminds  me  of  the  touching  gift  of  ten  shillings 
which  I  once  received  from  an  English  house- 
maid for  ambulance  work  in  Belgium.  Let  no 
one  doubt  the  spirit  in  which  this  money  of  hum- 

237 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

ble  persons  is  given.  It  is  given  because  a  lit- 
tle nation  was  crushed,  and  because  their  broth- 
ers and  lovers  are  fighting  to  free  that  little  na- 
tion. No  high-blown  dreams  of  empire,  no  lust 
for  territory,  no  desire  for  power  and  wealth,  are 
in  these  obscure  gifts.  They  are  conscience- 
money  to  Belgium.  They  are  the  pitiful  earn- 
ings of  a  democracy  passed  over  to  a  suffering 
people. 

In  Plymouth,  with  its  docking  and  shipping 
trade,  eighteen  thousand  persons  began  to  save 
in  one  week. 

At  Preston,  in  Lancashire,  $100,000  was 
turned  over  to  the  Government  by  the  workers 
in  the  period  of  four  months. 

There  is  an  elementary  school  for  350  boys 
near  Newcastle.  The  boys  brought  in  four  thou- 
sand dollars  from  their  families  in  eight  weeks, 
and  then  kept  up  the  average  of  five  hundred  dol- 
lars a  week. 

In  Battersea  one  of  the  school-boys  brought  in 
the  sum  of  five  hundred  dollars  in  pennies  col- 
lected among  the  three  hundred  boys  and  their 
working  families  in  ten  months. 

The  thing  that  irritates  us  about  England  is 
2S8 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

the  same  thing  that  offends  us  at  home.  Here 
is  no  well-oiled  autocracy  that  runs  on  a  single 
track  to  a  visible  goal.  Instead  of  that  clean, 
smooth,  organized,  docile  affair,  it  is  a  democracy, 
with  an  immensely  rich  variety  of  life  sprawling 
all  over  the  place.  The  air  is  full  of  voices,  be- 
cause every  one  is  allowed  to  speak.  If  you 
don't  like  it,  remember  what  it  is  that  you  don't 
like :  it  is  a  free  people,  choosing  to  make  its  own 
mistakes,  living  its  own  life,  and  just  now  out  on 
the  war-path  to  chase  some  trespassers  off  the 
premises.  Doubtless,  if  the  critics  were  running 
the  performance,  they  would  give  a  more  unified 
and  polished  proceeding.  But  no  group  of  per- 
sons are  running  this  war.  The  people  are  run- 
ning it.  So,  instead  of  losing  strength  as  the 
pressure  increases,  they  gather  force  and  mo- 
mentum with  each  mistake.  They  teach  them- 
selves by  failure.  The  will  of  the  great  German 
general  staff  can  be  snapped  by  defeat,  because 
the  staff  is  a  handful  of  men.  But  the  will  of 
45,000,000  people  can  not  be  broken,  because  it 
is  the  will  of  these  school-boys  and  working-girls, 
of  domestic  servants  and  munition-workers,  of  a 
democracy  whose  sense  of  pity  and  justice  has 

239 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

been  touched.  The  mistake  in  estimating  the 
English  effort  is  to  measure  it  at  any  given  time, 
because  it  is  a  continually  growing  effort.  It  is 
like  a  gathering  of  waters  from  mountain  streams 
and  the  drift  of  hills  and  from  inexhaustible 
rains.  The  confluence  keeps  widening  and  deep- 
ening from  a  thousand  tributaries.  The  pool 
can  be  emptied,  and  soon  it  is  not  only  filled  again, 
but  is  larger  than  before. 

The  English  are  a  "sentimental  nation."  I 
quote  a  distinguished  English  officer  when  I  say 
that,  Captain  Basil  Williams.  It  is  true.  They 
are  as  sentimental  as  Americans.  An  appeal  to 
cold  reason,  to  personal  aggrandizement,  to  a 
rainy  day,  or  to  a  shadowy  future,  does  not  move 
them  in  the  slightest.  But  something  that  con- 
cerns the  welfare  of  helpless  children  or  of  per- 
sons whom  they  love  releases  all  that  is  best  in 
the  English  race.  I  know  this,  because  I  worked 
in  a  Red  Cross  London  office  in  the  early  weeks 
of  the  war,  and  I  found  that  the  smallest  appeal 
to  the  English  public  for  help  in  clothing  Bel* 
gians  brought  in  a  large  response — a  response,  in 
fact,  so  overwhelming  that  it  stuffed  the  office 

240 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

rooms  with  supplies.  Personally  I  have  never 
dealt  with  a  public  that  is  so  swiftly  generous. 
When  the  full  facts  of  Belgian  relief  are  made 
public,  it  will  be  found  that  it  is  the  English  who 
have  fed  them  and  sheltered  them,  raised  the 
greater  part  of  the  money,  widened  and  adjusted 
their  own  home  life  in  order  to  absorb  an  army  of 
refugees,  and  steadily  continued  to  provide  funds 
without  spurts  and  without  fatigue.  No  better 
proof  of  this  racial  sentiment  and  kindliness  can 
be  had  than  by  studying  a  few  of  the  fifty-four 
million  posters  and  leaflets  of  recruiting,  and  the 
hundreds  of  thousand  publications  for  war  sav- 
ing. The  appeal  is  rarely  to  self-interest.  The 
appeal  is  to  the  heart,  to  the  great  objects  of  the 
war,  the  ideal  of  liberty,  the  cause  of  freedom. 
This  national  saving  is  not  being  done  by  ob- 
scure, hard-working  Englishmen  and  English- 
women to  make  their  own  old  age  cozy.  It  is 
being  done  to  free  Belgium  and  strengthen  de- 
mocracy. If  the  evangelists  who  have  gone 
about  Britain  preaching  war  savings  had  spoken 
to  a  commercial  motive,  they  would  have  whistled 
in  vain. 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

DRAGONS'  TEETH 

England  is  developing  a  set  of  problems  at 
lightning  speed  that  will  require  a  generation  to 
uncoil.  I  can  only  indicate  them.  It  would  fill 
another  volume  even  to  state  them  in  detail. 

The  first  attempt  to  treat  comprehensively  the 
new  machinery  and  buildings  created  by  war 
needs  has  been  made  by  the  annual  "Engineering 
Supplement"  of  "The  Times."  What  is  to  be 
done  with  this  new  plant?  has  been  the  question 
asked  by  many,  and  answered  by  none.  Mr. 
Hodge,  the  minister  of  labor,  states  that  seventy- 
five  million  dollars  of  new  capital  has  been  ex- 
pended in  the  extension  of  plant  in  the  iron  and 
steel  trade.  He  estimates  that  by  the  end  ef  the 
war  the  sum  will  be  one  hundred  and  fifty  mil- 
lions. He  says :  "I  don't  care  whether  it  is  by 
tariffs,  by  prohibition,  by  bounty,  or  any  other 
method,  the  plant  in  our  country  must  be  util- 
ized." Private  plants,  numbering  four  thousand 
seven  hundred,  have  greatly  expanded.  There 
are  over  ninety-five  new  national  factories.  The 
"Engineering  Supplement"  quotes  one  firm  as 
prophesying  "a  reduction  in  the  proportion  of 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

three  machines  to  one  available  for  future  use." 
A  firm  of  marine  engineers  says  that  sixty 
per  cent,  of  the  new  machines  will  have  to  be 
scrapped,  because  the  tools  are  over-driven  and 
worn  out.  But  even  these  estimates  leave  from 
twenty-five  to  forty  per  cent,  of  the  new  ma- 
chinery available,  and  this  is  an  enormous  ex- 
pansion in  productive  capacity.  Thus  in  one 
year  armament  firms  introduced  twenty-five  hun- 
dred new  machine  tools.  The  large  majority  of 
engineering  firms  agree  that  these  works,  with 
their  new  machinery,  will  be  used  for  the  inten- 
sive manufacture  of  standardized  articles.  The 
assembling  of  parts  at  these  central  plants  has  es- 
tablished manufacturing  practice  in  the  use  of 
gages,  and  created  the  conditions  for  standard 
and  interchangeable  manufacture.  As  one  firm 
writes : 

"In  small  tools — twist  drills  and  milling  cut- 
ters— we  believe  that  by  standardization  and 
judicious  publicity  we  may  fill  a  large  portion  of 
the  business  held  formerly  by  Germany  and  the 
United  States." 

One  hundred  thousand  gages  have  been  made 
in  the  technical  institutes  in  the  last  eighteen 

243 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

months.  The  gage  standardizes  the  engineering 
industry,  and  enables  it  to  produce  on  a  vast  scale 
a  great  variety  of  manufactured  articles.  Stand- 
ardization is  essential  to  low-cost  manufacture 
and  large  output,  and  the  establishment  of  stand- 
ard is  dependent  on  the  accuracy  of  gages,  de- 
fining specified  dimensions  of  absolute  magni- 
tude, and  limiting  permissible  variation. 
A  professional  engineer  writes: 

Our  locomotives  differ  only  in  relatively  small  de- 
tails, excepting  valve-gears.  The  main  sizes  of  cylin- 
ders, piston-rods,  connecting-rods,  side-rods,  crank 
axles  differ  only  very  slightly  in  the  same  class  of  en- 
gines. .  .  .  Hundreds  of  various  forms  of  l£-in. 
x  20-in.  horizontal  engines  exist,  differing  only  in  a 
very  small  degree  in  the  actual  details  that  count  in 
actual  wear  and  tear  and  the  life  of  the  engine.  Could 
not  all  these  details  be  agreed  and  standardized?  If 
a  few  more  usual  types  of  engines — marine,  steam 
rollers,  etc. — were  standardized,  quite  a  number  of  our 
present  munition  factories  could  be  engaged  in  manu- 
facturing connecting-rods  and  side-rods  only,  others 
the  cylinders  and  pistons,  others  the  valve-gears,  etc.; 
and  in  busy  areas,  without  much  carting,  whole  en- 
gines could  thus  be  assembled  in  special  shops  dealing 
with  special  engines  to  the  great  gain  of  our  home, 
colonial,  and  foreign  customers.  A  similar  course  is 

244 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

demanded  very  specially  for  electrical  machinery,  fit- 
tings, and  telephones. 

The  munition  factories  could  further  be  used  to 
great  advantage  m  fostering  and  nursing  the  British 
production  of  agricultural  machinery,  at  present  sadly 
behindhand,  and  manufacturing  it  as  standard  repeti- 
tion work.  They  would  also  be  suitable  for  making 
improved  machine  tools,  as  well  as  mining  tools,  such  as 
rock-drills,  etc. ;  and  standard  ships  would  be  greatly 
improved  if  fitted  not  only  with  the  standard  engines 
already  mentioned,  but  also  standard  winches,  pumps, 
steering-gear,  refrigerating-apparatus,  etc. 

The  output  in  the  engineering  trade  can  be 
increased  at  least  twenty-five  per  cent.,  even  with 
the  machinery  that  existed  before  the  war,  and 
with  the  new  machinery  that  percentage  will  go 
considerably  higher. 

Inevitably  standardization  leads  to  organiza- 
tion and  the  creation  of  combines  or  trusts. 
Motor-car  makers  suggest  the  use  of  the  great 
new  plants  for  the  purpose  of  producing  cheap 
cars  to  compete  with  those  of  American  make. 
Already  efforts  are  being  made  to  bring  about  a 
combination  of  British  makers. 

But  it  is  not  alone  in  the  engineering  trades 
that  trusts  are  likely  to  be  formed.  Already 

245 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

capital  is  concentrating  in  other  industries. 
Lord  Rhondda  purchased  a  group  of  Welsh  col- 
lieries, and  the  "Welsh  Outlook"  reports: 

Lord  Rhondda  now  controls  over  8%  millions  of  cap- 
ital [pounds,  not  dollars],  pays  &/2  millions  in  wages 
every  year,  and  is  virtually  the  dictator  of  the  eco- 
nomic destiny  of  a  quarter  of  a  million  miners.  Ru- 
mors are  also  current  that  Lord  Rhondda  is  extending 
his  control  over  the  press  of  Wales. 

To  control  such  vast,  irresponsible  economic 
power  as  his  will  be  the  task  of  Parliament;  but 
here  we  meet  with  a  new  war-created  problem. 
During  the  war  Parliament  has  largely  lost  its 
control  over  government,  which  is  administered 
to-day  by  a  temporary  group  of  lawyers,  finan- 
ciers, and  imperialists,  surrounded  by  a  larger 
group  of  permanent  expert  officials.  And  this 
group  in  turn  is  enlarged  by  a  small  army  of  vol- 
unteer social  workers.  Not  only  do  these  hidden 
experts  administer  government,  but  they  create 
new  legislation.  As  a  government  investigator 
reports : 

The  change  in  the  mode  of  industrial  legislation 
may  be  summed  up  as  a  tendency  to  move  from  the 
politician  towards  the  expert. 

246 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

Even  before  the  war  men  were  saying:  "The 
political  machine  of  to-day  presupposes  that  pop- 
ular opinion  shall  have  no  initiative.  Officialdom 
increases  at  the  expense  of  the  remaining  social 
classes." 

This  is  a  tendency  in  the  direction  of  beau- 
reaucracy,  and  the  value  of  it  rests  in  the  intel- 
ligence and  character  of  these  inner  manipulators 
and  their  responsiveness  to  public  need.  A  par- 
liamentary committee  sits  on  its  bill  of  recom- 
mendations, like  a  hen  on  its  nest,  and  rises  with 
a  cackle.  Sometimes  the  product,  when  hatched, 
is  as  distressing  and  unexpected  as  a  duck's  egg 
in  the  poultry  farm.  I  suspect  that  the  recon- 
struction committee  and  the  franchise  committee 
are  going  to  find  that  their  sober,  well-rounded 
draft  of  recommendations  will  develop  startling 
methods  of  locomotion.  The  law  itself,  hatched 
in  the  privacy  of  committee-rooms,  sallies  out  with 
a  special  dynamic  of  its  own. 

We  have  lost  all  surprise  that  our  correspondence 
should  be  pawed  over  before  we  see  it,  our  houses  in- 
vaded by  competent  or  incompetent  authorities  and 
their  representatives,  our  religion  regulated  or  otherwise 
catechised. 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

So  says  one  of  the  "Cambridge  Magazine" 
group,  who  have  retained  their  sanity  in  a  war 
which  temporarily  unhinged  H.  G.  Wells  and 
Arnold  Bennett,  and  lifted  Austin  Harrison, 
St.  Loe  Strachey,  Leo  Maxse,  Gwynne,  Horatio 
Bottomley,  Robert  Blatchford,  and  Northcliffe 
into  leadership  of  public  opinion.  To  these  crea- 
tors of  constructive  thought,  "out  to  beat  the 
Boches,"  such  a  question  as  "Who  shall  guard  the 
guardians?"  is  academic  in  "  a  world  of  blood  and 
iron,  controlled  by  men  who  do  not  take  what 
they  would  call  a  Sunday-school  view,"  as  the 
realist  editor  of  the  "Spectator"  writes. 

But  Parliament  was  at  least  an  honest  attempt 
to  give  the  people  a  check  on  the  behavior  of  the 
men  in  power.  And  now  this  inside  clique  has 
taken  away  Parliament,  and  no  one  knows  where 
they  have  secreted  it.  When  it  has  been  discov- 
ered and  restored,  it  will  have  still  other  problems 
with  which  to  wrestle. 

How  are  the  three  thousand  million  pounds 
of  national  debt  to  be  paid  for?  Indirect  taxa- 
tion means  high  prices  on  food  and  clothing,  a 
high  cost  of  living.  Taxation  of  income,  death 
duties,  conscription  of  profits,  is  "class  legisla- 

248 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

tion."  The  only  final  way  out  here  is1  of  course 
to  add  to  taxation  increased  production.  A  man 
pays  his  debts  by  successful  work  not  alone  by 
manipulating  the  market,  but  mainly  by  provid- 
ing it  with  commodities. 

But  meanwhile  high  wages  and  high  prices  are 
leading  to  a  demand  for  protection.  England 
is  talking  of  coming  over  on  the  good  old  Mc- 
Kinley  American  basis.  The  ancient  battle- 
ground of  tariff  reform  is  going  to  be  churned 
into  dust  and  heat.  For  a  growing  group  of 
Tories,  reinforced  by  converts,  like  the  new  min- 
ister of  labor,  are  finding  the  source  of  all  eco- 
nomic weakness  in  free  trade.  A  convenient,  one- 
phrase  summary  solution  of  a  complex  matter  is 
always  appreciated  by  men  who  don't  enjoy  the 
process  of  organizing  thought.  This  is  no  sud- 
den conversion  for  a  portion  of  the  Tories.  Dis- 
raeli held  that  "the  ultimate  aim  of  the  Free 
Trader  was  to  govern  England  in  the  interest  of 
the  Industrialist,"  as  Butler  points  out  in  his  able 
study  of  "The  Tory  Tradition."  "I  wish,"  said 
Disraeli,  "to  see  our  national  prosperity  upheld 
alike  by  a  skilful  agriculture  and  by  an  extended 
commerce." 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

That  "alike"  to  be  effective  would  require  some 
of  the  same  magic  which  Joshua  used  on  the  set- 
ting sun,  for  England  is  an  industrial  coun- 
try. But  Disraeli  and  many  of  the  later  Tory 
protectionists  acted  from  long-held  conviction. 
Whereas  there  is  a  touch  of  extempore  when  Mr. 
Hodge,  the  new  minister  of  labor,  intoxicated  by 
his  association  with  peers  of  the  realm,  cries  out 
in  Pisgah  vision  that  England  is  done  with  free 
trade.  At  least  it  will  pay  him  to  study  the 
happy  industrial  proletariat  in  Fall  River,  Law- 
rence, and  our  other  protected  cities  before  he 
turns  to  tariff  reform  as  the  sole  salvation  of  a 
country  that  requires  immense  quantities  of  raw 
material. 

This  is  the  danger  which  England  faces,  that 
her  leaders  will  run  after  panaceas  of  protection, 
business  government,  scientific  management,  in- 
stead of  dealing  with  what  is  the  heart  of  each  one 
of  her  problems — human  relationship. 

CHANGE! 

At  the  Labor  party  conference  in  Manchester 
in  the  first  month  of  1917  one  of  the  leaders  said: 

If  the  soldier  was  worth  two  pounds  a  week  when  he 
250 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

was  destroying  things,  was  he  not  worth  two  pounds 
when  he  was  producing?  A  country  which  can  find 
millions  of  "quids"  to  feed  the  cannon's  mouth  can 
find  millions  to  feed  the  worker's  mouth. 

The  other  day  I  was  sitting  at  luncheon  with 
the  mayor  of  one  of  the  great  English  cities.  He 
said  to  me: 

Never  again  will  there  be  the  cry  of  "No  money  to 
spend."  A  thousand  million  for  war,  and  you  haggle 
over  twenty  millions  for  education?  Give  us  educa- 
tion. Continue  the  high  wages.  Don't  knock  off  the 
war  bonuses.  Make  them  permanent.  Pay  unskilled 
labor  a  minimum  of  thirty  shillings,  and  later  raise  it 
to  two  pounds.  We  don't  need  to  worry  about  the 
skilled  trade-unionists.  Let  them  fight  for  their  three 
and  four  pounds.  There  will  be  no  trouble  after  the 
war.  Labor  will  obtain  its  demands.  Wages  can't  be 
lowered.  The  workers  won't  let  them. 

That  is  one  of  the  new  ideas  brought  into  Eng- 
lish life  by  the  war:  there  must  he  a  better  use 
of  money  and  a  wider  distribution  of  it  than  in 
the  past.  This  idea  will  be  applied,  for  instance, 
to  the  care  of  motherhood  and  child  welfare.  At 
the  maternity  centers  one  has  now  the  spectacle 
of  the  state  keeping  the  mother  and  child  alive, 
but  under-nourished.  If  the  state  is  to  intervene 

251 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

at  all,  it  must  do  so  vigorously.  Otherwise  the 
cost  of  intervention,  which  is  paid  for  by  taxa- 
tion, fails  to  result  in  a  sturdy  race,  paying  back 
the  subsidy  by  production.  There  is  a  phrase  in 
golf  about  following  through  the  stroke.  It  ad- 
mirably expresses  the  thoroughness  that  is  needed 
in  social  reform. 

That  imperial  and  foreign  policy  concerns  the 
individual  worker,  and  can  make  him  prosperous 
or  uncomfortable,  is  another  idea  which  the  war 
has  brought  to  the  British  mind.  Imperial  pol- 
icy, which  by  its  very  nature  is  democratic,  is  it- 
self a  foreign  policy.  When  you  shovel  together 
free  nations,  which  are  a  belt  around  the  world, 
you  have  necessarily  established  a  series  of  con- 
tacts with  backward  races,  subject  peoples,  and 
imperfect  democracies.  The  domestic  policy 
must  be  influenced  by  the  foreign  policy.  As  an 
instance,  one  of  the  first  matters  to  be  taken  up 
by  the  British  imperial  conference  will  be  that 
of  Ireland.  The  recoil  of  this  on  foreign  policy 
will  be  powerful.  It  will  clear  the  air  for  an 
Anglo-American  understanding.  Great  Britain, 
in  accepting  the  idea  of  a  British  commonwealth, 

252 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

has  in  reality  extended  the  principle  of  demo- 
cratic control  to  foreign  policy.  This  means  a 
lessening  of  secret  diplomacy.  It  is  a  coherent, 
thoughtful,  and  determined  effort  to  put  into  ex- 
ecution the  excellent  desires  which  The  Hague 
Conference  stimulated,  but  did  not  make  effec- 
tive. One  of  the  duties  of  a  modern  nation  is 
to  induce  its  citizens  to  exercise  the  responsibili- 
ties which  they  in  reality  possess,  but  do  not  care 
to  acknowledge.  It  has  required  a  preliminary 
course  of  education  to  accustom  the  British 
dominions  to  the  idea  that  they  were  concerned 
with  foreign  policy.  By  groups  of  informal  con- 
ference, by  much  excellent  pamphleteering  in 
"The  Round  Table,"  by  all  sorts  of  books,  articles, 
and  talks  from  Cromer,  Milner,  Lionel  Curtis, 
P.  H.  Kerr,  Ray  Lankester,  and  Woolf,  the  re- 
sponsibilities of  the  British  state  have  been  em- 
phasized. The  pressure  of  the  war  has  served 
to  accelerate  a  tendency  of  thought  that  was  al- 
ready in  operation.  In  fact,  none  of  these  ideas 
is  really  new.  All  have  been  familiar  to  thinkers 
for  a  number  of  years,  but  there  is  never  any 
large  number  of  thinkers  loose  on  this  planet  at 

253 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

any  one  moment.  So  it  takes  time  for  thought 
to  shake  down  among  the  people,  and  finally  to 
reach  an  application  in  government. 

As  these  ideas  spread,  the  British  public  is  be- 
ginning to  keep  a  close  tab  on  its  leaders.  It  in- 
sists that  they  be  representative,  and  when  they 
take  a  side-track,  the  democracy  cuts  loose  and 
leaves  them  lonely.  The  war  has  given  us  three 
instances  of  this  in  Hughes  of  Australia,  John 
Redmond,  and  Mrs.  Pankhurst.  Mr.  Hughes 
was  elected  premier  of  Australia  to  represent  a 
democratic  community  in  terms  of  social  legisla- 
tion and  administration.  He  sailed  to  England, 
became  inoculated  with  the  belief  that  he  was  a 
war-lord,  advocated  at  the  Paris  conference  a 
trade  boycott,  which  would  have  isolated  Eng- 
land from  the  markets  of  the  world  more  effectu- 
ally than  a  shoal  of  submarines,  and  finally,  fed 
by  flattery,  swelled  to  the  role  of  dictator  and 
declared  for  conscription.  His  home  people 
voted  him  down,  some  of  his  cabinet  resigned,  and 
to-day  he  is  a  minority  premier.  "Stick  to  your 
last"  is  the  meaning  of  the  swift  trouncing  which 
the  Australian  democracy  gave  him. 

John  Redmond  is  head  of  the  Irish  National- 
254 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

ists,  but  he  no  longer  represents  young  Ireland. 
And  the  reason  is  that,  in  a  burst  of  parliamen- 
tary fervor,  he  pledged  Ireland  to  the  cause  of 
the  Allies.  That  was  not  for  him  to  do.  He 
was  sent  to  Westminster  to  push  through  Home 
Rule,  not  to  cooperate  with  Downing  Street  in 
foreign  policy.  The  Irish  people  refused  to  be 
picked  up  in  his  right  hand  and  set  down  in  the 
trenches. 

When  war  broke  out  Mrs.  Pankhurst  dropped 
her  militant  campaign  and  went  out  recruiting. 
Ever  since  then  she  has  watched  the  Balkan  de- 
velopments, pounded  Lord  Grey,  urged  a  fight 
to  a  finish.  She  not  only  dropped  her  militant 
campaign;  she  dropped  the  woman  question. 
She  no  longer  follows  social  legislation,  the 
woman's  wage,  hours  of  over-time.  But  she  was 
a  leader  precisely  because  of  the  woman  question ; 
so  her  following  has  dropped  away,  and  she  is  no 
longer  ranked  by  the  women  reformers  as  one  of 
the  general  staff.  Thus  the  organ  of  the  women 
trade-unionists,  "The  Woman  Worker,"  writes 
a  "message  that  might  have  come"  from  Mrs. 
Pankhurst : 

"I  desire  to  inform  members  of  the  Federation 
255 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

that  in  my  view  their  duty  should  be  to  march  in 
as  many  processions,  create  as  much  disturbance, 
and  take  as  many  collections  as  possible."  And 
there  is  a  more  deadly  home-thrust  than  that. 
Her  own  daughter,  Sylvia  Pankhurst,  has  gone 
on  with  the  work  of  social  reform  for  women,  and 
to-day  has  a  strong  following.  There  is  another 
reason  why  Mrs.  Pankhurst  has  lost  her  follow- 
ing, and  this  is  that  her  following  have  under- 
gone a  psychological  change;  but  of  that  I  will 
speak  later.  What  concerns  me  here  is  that  Mrs. 
Pankhurst  abandoned  the  woman's  movement  for 
the  national  cause,  and  that  in  doing  this  she  lost 
control  of  her  part  of  the  woman's  movement. 

I  am  not  engaged  here  in  debating  the  ques- 
tion whether  Mr.  Hughes  was  not  correct  in  urg- 
ing conscription,  whether  Mr.  Redmond  was  not 
far-sighted  in  pledging  Ireland,  and  whether 
Mrs.  Pankhurst  was  not  patriotic  in  subordinat- 
ing women  workers  to  soldiers.  I  am  only  say- 
ing that  they  did  not  represent  their  constituency, 
and  in  taking  the  new  tack  they  lost  their  follow- 
ing. What  the  democracy  is  learning  to  say  to 
its  leaders  is,  "Represent  us  or  get  out."  I  don't 
see  in  these  manifestations  of  the  popular  wish 

256 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

any  new  idea,  but  I  do  see  a  swifter  and  more 
sensitive  application  of  the  principle  of  demo- 
cratic control.  Leaders  remain  leaders  only  as 
long  as  they  are  channels  for  the  collective  will. 

Another  change  I  feel  in  English  life  is  an 
emotional  change.  It  is  the  disappearance  of  the 
hysteria  that  was  caused  by  suppression.  I  don't 
refer  to  the  orgiastic  elements  in  the  English 
nature  that  are  revealed  at  the  corner  public 
house  and  on  Bank  holiday.  These  are  the  peri- 
odic explosions  of  the  natural  man.  It  was  in- 
evitable that  England  should  have  created  the 
Salvation  Army  and  indulged  in  Mafeking 
Night.  The  normal  Englishman  is  a  free,  noisy 
creature,  who  talks  by  the  hour,  interrupts  pub- 
lic meetings,  and  lives  as  a  human  being  should. 
Any  one  who  does  n't  know  that  has  never  spent 
evenings  in  country  inns,  and  has  never  traveled 
in  a  third-class  compartment.  The  English 
worker  is  a  sociable  person.  Nor  am  I  referring 
to  the  upper  class,  which  has  spread  its  govern- 
ors, explorers,  and  sportsmen  over  the  earth,  and 
whose  women  ride  to  hounds,  drive  ambulances 
under  the  guns,  and  speed  up  the  suffrage  cam- 
paign. 

257 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

I  am  speaking  of  the  English  middle  class,  the 
forlornest  middle  class  known  to  me.  France 
and  America  have  nothing  like  it.  The  suppres- 
sion of  emotional  life  in  the  women — the  creation 
of  the  pose  of  "good  form,"  the  severely  reticent 
lady,  neither  heard  nor  even  seen  in  public — has 
resulted  in  a  rather  wide-spread  hysteria  in  that 
one  stratum  of  the  community,  the  middle-class 
layer.  These  women  are  desirous  to  be  true  to 
type,  to  do  nothing  that  is  not  correct,  and  the 
result  has  been  a  prim  and  regulated  life,  full  of 
negations,  with  the  instinctive  impulses  and  de- 
sires of  a  free,  creative  life  left  out  of  the  reckon- 
ing. Nature  punishes  this  suppression  with 
nervous  maladies.  One  London  specialist  told 
me  he  knew  of  several  hundred  such  cases. 

This  hysteria  was  shown  in  manifestations 
of  the  militant  suffrage  movement.  I  am  not 
speaking  of  the  leaders.  Mrs.  Pankhurst  is  a 
very  charming  woman,  of  determined  will  and 
well-balanced  mentality,  who  adopted  a  program 
of  action  because  she  believed  she  was  forced  to 
it  by  the  demands  of  the  situation.  Mrs.  "Gen- 
eral" Drummond  is  the  most  delightful  humorist, 
with  the  exception  of  Chesterton,  whom  I  have 

258 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

ever  met.  She  is  luminously  sane.  My  wife  and 
I  spent  three  days  with  her  at  Havre,  and  she 
held  us  through  the  evenings  till  midnight  with 
her  reminiscences  of  carrying  a  hansom-cab  into 
the  House  of  Commons,  floating  in  a  tug  down 
the  Thames  past  Parliament,  and  addressing  the 
statesmen  on  the  Embankment,  who  had  to  sit 
and  listen  because  they  were  chained  to  their 
afternoon  tea.  Another  time  she  was  in  the  gal- 
lery of  a  crowded  public  hall  and,  in  trying  to  go 
out,  became  entangled  in  the  pedals  of  the  organ, 
and  sent  out  wailing  notes.  Miss  Kenney  is  a 
modest,  earnest  young  woman  of  clear,  idealistic 
purpose.  This  handful  of  leaders  who  manipu- 
lated the  Women's  Social  and  Political  Union 
are  expressing  themselves.  But  the  movement 
attracted  an  element  in  the  middle  class  which  is 
in  spiritual  bondage,  and  some  of  these  showed 
signs  of  hysteria  in  their  response.  The  bitter- 
ness of  tone  in  the  books  of  certain  English 
women  writers  is  another  indication  of  suffer- 
ing. 

To  all  such  victims  of  suppressed  vitality,  lead- 
ing to  anxiety,  melancholy,  and  hysteria,  the  war 
has  come  as  a  release,  for  it  has  given  them  excit- 

259 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

ing  occupation.  They  have  entered  industry, 
commerce,  government  employment.  They  have 
nursed  soldiers,  cooked  at  canteens,  and  become 
a  part  of  the  great  communal  life  flowing  past 
them. 

These  minor  changes  of  idea  and  attitude  and 
emotional  response  are  all  a  part  of  the  great 
change  which  has  come  over  England.  Life  is 
no  longer  a  monopoly  possession  of  the  upper 
classes,  of  the  male  sex,  of  the  mother  country,  of 
the  Westminster  Parliament,  of  the  captains  of 
industry.  Life  is  not  a  matter  to  be  postponed 
to  the  hereafter  and  the  choir  invisible.  It  is  the 
product  here  and  now  of  one's  will  and  energy, 
fed  by  impulse,  and  shaped  by  thought.  One- 
self is  the  person  concerned,  and  the  happiest  so- 
ciety in  which  to  feel  at  home  is  a  democracy  of 
equals. 

A   BATCH    OF   PAPERS 

Instead  of  being  ponderous  and  exhaustive, 
and  writing  this  like  a  sociological  report,  I  shall 
tell  what  I  like  and  dislike  about  British  journal- 
ism, and  we  shall  get  along  faster  than  by  the 
heavy-footed  way.  I  like  Chesterton's  paper, 

260 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

"The  New  Witness,"  since  G.  K.  C.  has  taken  it 
over.  Others  that  write  his  style  annoy  me,  as 
an  echo  in  the  auditorium  annoys  an  audience 
who  want  to  hear  the  speaker  himself.  I  like 
"The  New  Witness"  because  Gilbert  K.  Chester- 
ton seems  to  me  the  best  thing  England  has  pro- 
duced since  Dickens.  I  like  the  things  he  be- 
lieves in,  and  I  hate  sociological  experts  and  pro- 
hibitionists and  Uhlan  officers,  which  are  the 
things  he  hates.  I  feel  in  him  that  a  very  honest 
man  is  speaking,  so  I  am  glad  of  his  views  even 
when  I  differ  with  him.  He  is  a  useful  correc- 
tive on  public  opinion,  too.  He  dislikes  the  ser- 
vile state,  by  which  he  means  the  coming  orderly, 
regimented  Utopia,  scientifically  managed  by 
Sidney  Webb.  That  is  the  kind  of  talk  we  need, 
because  all  of  us  in  social  work  (and  who  is  n't  a 
social  worker  to-day?)  are  forever  hunting  and 
harrying  the  poor,  itemizing  their  food-supply, 
shading  off  just  the  proportion  of  caloric  differ- 
ence between  starvation  and  under-nourishment. 
And  when  we  catch  the  line  where  the  poor  sat- 
isfy us  that  they  can  pull  through,  we  are  going 
to  impale  them  with  a  minimum  wage.  I  like 
his  impudence  to  Northcliffe,  because  Northcliffe 

261 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

is  a  dangerous  sort  of  man  in  a  modern  democ- 
racy. He  is  dangerous  because  he  does  so  much 
good ;  but  I  will  get  around  to  him  in  a  moment. 
As  a  journalist  Chesterton  gets  only  about  a 
quarter  of  himself  into  action.  But  even  a  quar- 
ter of  Chesterton  is  good  measure.  He  leaves 
out  all  his  overtones,  the  lilting  verse  and  jolly 
stories  and  incomparable  essays,  those  flashes  of 
good  criticism  and  exultation.  He  works  very 
hard  at  his  journalism.  That  is  why  he  does  n't 
do  it  so  well  as  his  careless  things,  which  give  him 
fun.  But  for  all  that  there  is  no  other  editorial 
page  in  England  or  the  United  States  written 
with  the  snap,  wit,  and  honest  humanity  of  his 
paragraphs.  I  hope  he  won't  blunt  himself  by 
overwork.  It  would  be  an  international  loss  if 
that  sane,  jolly  mind  is  bent  to  routine.  Eng- 
land has  need  of  him.  There  is  something  cosmic 
about  English  plans  of  reconstruction,  something 
of  the  weary  load  of  destiny  about  their  imperial 
commonwealth.  It  is  a  pleasant  thing  to  be  able 
to  remind  ourselves  that  the  same  race  that  pro- 
duced Curzon  and  Milner  and  Carson,  heavy 
men,  with  a  sense  of  predestined  seriousness, 
after  all  produced  Chesterton. 

262 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

I  have  to  jump  the  Irish  Sea  in  order  to  find 
anything  so  much  in  earnest  and  gay  as  the  "New 
Witness"  in  these  months  of  management  by  one 
who  tells  me  that  he  is  "the  world's  worst  editor." 
I  think  the  independent  spirited  little  Irish  week- 
lies are  admirable.  They  sass  the  censor  and  the 
lord  lieutenant  and  the  Castle.  I  met  some  of 
the  editors,  poor  men  and  honest,  editing  and 
writing  papers  in  which  they  believe.  They 
seemed  to  me  worth  all  the  sleek,  timid 
New  York  crowd  put  together.  They  speak 
their  heart  out,  then  take  the  galley  proof 
around  to  the  censor,  and  he  slashes  out 
"seditious"  paragraphs,  and  they  publish  about 
half  their  heartful.  I  have  seen  these  carved-up 
galleys  and  the  pleading,  warning,  threatening 
letters  of  the  censor.  These  journalists  are 
pretty  much  everything  in  their  shop — editor  and 
contributor  and  proof-reader  and  office  boy — be- 
cause their  papers  are  often  one-man  concerns. 
A  man  believes  something  hard,  and  being  Irish, 
he  has  the  knack  of  statement,  so  he  publishes  a 
paper.  One  of  them  told  us  he  had  a  weekly 
circulation  of  10,000;  another  had  6000.  These 
weeklies  have  literary  quality.  One  of  them, 

263 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

"New  Ireland,"  is  stuffed  full  of  good  things  by 
A.  E.,  James  Stephens,  Katharine  Tynan,  and 
the  rest  of  that  gifted  group.  There  is  some- 
thing pathetic  about  the  editors  I  am  speaking 
of;  I  met  several  of  them.  I  don't  mean  pitiable, 
because  you  don't  pity  men  who  are  better  than 
you  are.  But  there  seemed  something  hopeless 
about  the  success  of  their  efforts  within  any  span 
of  time  that  would  concern  them  at  all.  I  sup- 
pose it  is  just  an  extension  of  the  feeling  that  we 
have  about  any  clean,  unrewarded  effort  in  this 
present  world  of  ours  where  men  of  the  sort  of 
these  Irish  editors,  with  fine  hopes  about  human- 
ity in  their  heart,  go  lean  and  tired  to  their  grave. 
Some  of  them  are  already  in  prison,  and  more  of 
them  will  be  there  before  the  Irish  question  is  well 
settled. 

Coming  back  to  England,  one  has  to  have  "The 
Nation."  It  is  much  like  our  own  "New  Repub- 
lic." But  what  is  a  discovery  in  "The  New  Re- 
public" becomes  a  formula  in  "The  Nation." 
"The  New  Republic"  is  cock-sure,  omniscient, 
and  "I  'm  not  arguing  with  you ;  I  'm  telling 
you,"  because  its  background  is  scanty,  and  it  has 
the  freshness  of  a  virgin  mind.  "The  Nation"  is 

£64 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

all  background,  and  so  is  a  little  weary.  It  has 
the  slightly  fatigued  mind  of  one  who  has  lived 
a  lif  etime  with  the  noble  aspirations  of  our  better- 
class  radicals,  and  needs  a  change,  but  won't  take 
it.  I  have  read  "The  Nation"  since  1908,  and  I 
never  felt  this  ennui  so  much  as  during  these  war 
months.  Like  many  other  radicals,  it  was 
caught  between  the  Zeppelins  and  the  submarines 
without  a  program.  It  had  nothing  to  say,  and 
said  it.  Latterly  it  has  had  a  rebirth.  Bertrand 
Russell  published  a  fascinating  book  a  few 
months  ago,  called  "Why  Men  Fight."  I  have 
been  watching  that  book  seep  out  through 
the  pores  of  "The  Nation"  ever  since.  "The 
Nation"  makes  me  tired  because  its  sincerity 
is  stale;  but,  for  all  that,  it  is  one  of  the  best 
weeklies  in  England,  and  it  comes  closer  to 
interpreting  the  vital  thought  of  England,  the 
currents  of  tendency,  than  any  paper  known  to 
me.  Only  I  wish  it  were  not  so  languid  in  tell- 
ing about  vital  thought.  It  is  of  course  well  writ- 
ten, a  quality  it  shares  with  forty  other  papers. 
That  gift  of  a  good  working  style  is  rather  wide- 
spread. It  comes  of  having  a  literary  tradition 
and  a  well-read  university  crowd.  There  must 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

be  two  or  three  hundred  men  in  England  with  a 
clear  and  satisfactory  technic. 

Speaking  of  the  "New  Republic,"  Leo  Maxse 
of  "The  National  Review"  and  Massingham  of 
"The  Nation"  unite  in  quoting  from  it.  Men 
like  Lord  Milner  "see"  it.  Professor  Graham 
Wallas  said  to  me:  "Walter  Lippmann  has  a 
mind  with  an  edge.  He  may  well  develop  into 
a  great  democratic  leader." 

I  was  taught  at  Yale  to  regard  "The  Athe- 
nseum"  as  the  authoritative  paper  of  the  English 
language  in  literary  criticism,  and  having  built 
that  into  my  formative  years,  I  can  no  more  shake 
the  belief  than  I  can  free  myself  of  the  idea  that 
we  are  the  home  of  the  brave  and  the  free.  But 
I  shall  have  to  let  it  go  at  that,  because  I  often 
escape  from  it  to  the  clever  and  breezy  opening 
paragraphs  of  "The  Saturday  Review."  They 
state  the  news  of  the  week  in  one  hundred  word 
summaries,  which  are  equally  charming  on  the 
death  of  a  Greek  professor  and  the  rotten  radi- 
calism of  modern  thought.  I  like  "The  Satur- 
day Review,"  "The  National  Review,"  and  "The 
Morning  Post"  for  an  impotent  hate  which  they 
have  in  common.  I  love  to  watch  what  psycho- 

266 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

analysts  term  a  "complex"  uncoil  itself  periodi- 
cally, and  writhe  around  in  the  public  eye.  Each 
of  them  has  a  nest  of  complexes,  and  all  have  the 
same  complexes.  They  hate  Americans,  Ger- 
mans, labor,  radicalism,  and  the  Irish  with  a  fine, 
fresh  enthusiasm,  which  results  in  lively  writing. 
In  this  bad  modern  world  they  have  lost  their 
public,  and  they  see  their  future  trailed  out  be- 
hind them  like  a  foamy  wake,  but  they  go  into 
dissolution  with  a  zest.  The  war  has  partly 
spoiled  their  pleasure,  because  German  misdeeds 
gave  them  a  legitimate  and  a  popular  object  of 
attack,  and  for  a  time  they  had  to  endure  a  cer- 
tain measure  of  public  favor,  as  men  who  had 
told  you  so.  But  as  the  Irish  question  ap- 
proaches settlement,  as  labor  takes  control  of  a 
new  province  every  month,  and  as  radicalism 
honeycombs  the  British  commonwealth,  they  are 
regaining  their  ancient  role  of  Cassandra. 

To  talk  of  English  weekly  journalism  and 
omit  Horatio  Bottomley  and  his  "John  Bull" 
would  be  as  unfortunate  as  dropping  George 
Cohan  and  Billy  Sunday  from  a  list  of  leaders 
of  American  thought.  Very  simply  Bottomley 
said  recently : 

267 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

I  speak  as  the  editor  of  a  journal  which  enjoys  a 
circulation  and  wields  an  influence  unique  in  newspaper 
history;  and  as  one  who,  for  good  or  evil,  has  gained 
the  ear  and  the  confidence  of  a  sufficient  section  of  the 
British  public  to  make  or  unmake  Ministers. 

Stated  with  true  British  restraint,  that  is  a 
minimum  appraisal  of  the  place  Bottomley  holds 
in  public  esteem.  In  the  same  issue  Lloyd- 
George  learns  he  is  not  to  be  broken  at  the  first 
kick-off.  "So  long  as  he  does  this — but  not  a 
day  longer — he  may  rely,  for  what  it  may  be 
worth,  upon  my  unqualified  and  disinterested 
support."  I  heard  a  British  colonel  say  the 
other  day  that  Bottomley  should  have  been  in  the 
cabinet.  He  writes  a  picture-post-card  style, 
like  that  of  Arthur  Brisbane,  which  is  spotted 
with  battle-cries  and  catch-phrases  such  as  "a 
business  Government,"  "Germany's  Death-rat- 
tle." He  is  really  funny  in  a  way  that  "Punch" 
would  like  to  be.  He  has  a  genuine  pity  for  the 
lot  of  the  poor,  and  I  think  in  that,  and  not  in 
his  raw  conceit  and  vulgarity  and  barrenness  of 
ideas,  lies  the  secret  of  his  hold  on  a  portion  of 
the  people.  When  it  comes  to  the  downright 
spade-work  of  reconstruction,  where  bright 

268 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

phrases  are  not  a  substitute  for  hard  thinking,  I 
foresee  a  sharp  tussle  for  mastery  between  the 
Bottomley  type  of  mind  and  the  real  leaders  of 
England.  Surely  the  real  leaders  are  men  like 
Seebohm  Rowntree,  Zimmern,  Lionel  Curtis, 
and  Prothero,  who  put  fundamental  brain-work 
on  the  industrial  and  imperial  problems.  Mean- 
while I  read  "John  Bull,"  and  so  does  England. 
There  is  no  wrench  in  passing  from  Bottomley 
to  Lord  Northcliffe.  Both  are  "practical  men," 
who  want  things  done  now.  Northcliffe  is  a  big, 
genial  man,  carrying  a  sense  of  immediate  power. 
He  suggested  to  me  a  cross  between  a  district 
leader  and  a  captain  of  industry.  He  will  do  any- 
thing for  you  personally,  like  a  Tammany  boss. 
It  gives  him  a  sense  of  his  own  power,  and  it  ex- 
presses a  genuine  human  liking  in  his  make-up. 
He  cuts  across  lots  to  get  into  action.  He  writes 
well,  talks  well,  and  has  a  hard  horse  sense 
that  has  served  England  in  the  present  crisis. 
Whether  he  will  continue  to  be  of  value  will  de- 
pend on  his  ability  to  broaden  his  vision  of  the 
industrial  struggle.  He  has  the  arrogance  of 
men  who  make  swift  decisions,  and  who  are  in  the 
position  to  carry  them  out.  He  has  a  sharpened 

269 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

sense  of  reality,  but  it  is  a  materialistic  sense. 
Whether  he  will  help  the  new  world  after  the  war 
is  a  question  that  is  troubling  all  who  have 
watched  his  astonishing  career  and  realize  his 
force.  There  is  a  danger  of  England  too  hastily 
reshaping  its  ideals.  Because  it  has  been  slow 
and  unorganized  it  is  turning  to  American  and 
Prussian  methods.  But  it  will  be  a  loss  if  it  lets 
in  the  whole  materialistic  philosophy  of  results, 
success,  and  efficency.  And  just  here  is  the 
damage  of  a  man  like  Northcliffe,  because  he  is 
a  sort  of  Prussian  superman,  who  is  death  on 
slackness,  but  blind  to  any  meaning  that  can't  be 
caught  inside  of  three  dimensions.  There  was  a 
restraint  in  English  journalism  before  his  time. 
I  noticed  the  other  day  that  he  published  in  his 
"Daily  Mail"  a  cartoon  of  Raemaekers,  and  used 
an  underline  which  made  it  seem  that  Raemaek- 
ers had  drawn  his  picture  in  order  to  throw  scorn 
on  Viscount  Grey.  Actually  the  caption  had 
been  faked  in  the  office  to  serve  the  political  ends 
of  the  paper.  That  is  dirty  journalism,  as  dirty 
as  America's  Yellow  Press.  I  am  not  trying  to 
offer  wise  conclusions  in  this  chapter.  I  am  only 
recording  impressions  after  many  years  of  daily 

270 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

reading  in  the  English  press.  So  I  leave  North- 
cliffe  with  no  formulated  opinion.  I  see  valuable 
service  in  his  hard  hitting,  but  I  distrust  some- 
thing in  the  man  which  I  feel  to  be  ruthless  and 
unmoral.  It  seems  to  me  un-English,  or  else  I 
am  all  wrong  about  the  temperateness  and  kindli- 
ness of  English  character. 

"The  Manchester  Guardian"  is  one  of  the 
best  newspapers  in  England.  To  praise  its  edi- 
torials, its  dramatic  reviews,  its  balance  of  news, 
its  judicial,  and  yet  spirited,  attitude  to  custom 
and  change,  is  what  President  Hadley  tersely 
calls  "a  work  of  supererogation."  It  is  as  good 
as  an  amalgam  of  "The  Springfield  Republican," 
"The  Kansas  City  Star,"  and  "The  Dallas 
News." 

"The  Westminster  Gazette"  has  a  delightful 
literary  department  where  they  turn  English 
verses  into  decasyllabic  Latin,  develop  the  ca- 
pabilities of  words  whose  initial  letter  is  z,  and 
write  tiny  essays  on  "How  to  Enter  an  Omnibus." 

A.  G.  Gardiner  writes  political  studies  and 
character  sketches  in  his  "Daily  News"  that  re- 
mind an  American  of  Colonel  Watterson's  best 
work. 

271 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

I  have  grown  very  weary  of  J.  L.  Garvin  in 
the  Sunday  "Observer."  He  has  felt  the  neces- 
sity of  "putting  a  punch"  into  it  every  week  till  he 
writes  portentously  of  "tanks,"  which  should  be 
left  for  Chesterton,  and  of  the  map  of  Europe, 
which  is  the  vested  interest  of  Hilaire  Belloc. 

The  best  writers  of  Great  Britain  sprinkle 
themselves  about  on  the  editorial  pages  in  a  way 
that  makes  the  breakfast  paper  a  voyage  of  dis- 
covery. The  "New  Statesman,"  the  "New 
Age,"  and  the  "Cambridge  Magazine,"  with  its 
amazing  digest  of  foreign  opinion,  are  quite  ir- 
replaceable because  no  other  periodicals  fulfill 
their  function.  I  used  to  read  the  "Spectator," 
till  Strachey's  militancy  in  several  fields  grew 
wearisome. 

The  individualistic  penny  weeklies  and  month- 
lies are  unfailingly  bright.  It  seems  strange  to 
me  that  we  have  nothing  of  the  sort  in  America. 
The  suffrage  papers;  the  one-man  affairs,  like 
George  Lansbury's  "Herald"  and  Sorollea's 
"Everyman";  "The  British  Weekly,"  with  its  ex- 
cellent literary  letter  by  Robertson  Nicoll;  "The 
Christian  Commonwealth,"  with  its  analysis  of 
labor  conditions  and  of  advanced  Nonconformist 

272 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

thought — all  combine  to  give  the  impression  of  a 
self-conscious  public  opinion  fed  and  renewed  by 
the  free  play  of  the  individualistic  mind. 

Of  the  heavier  reviews,  "The  Fortnightly," 
''Nineteenth  Century"  and  "The  Contemporary" 
are  valuable  for  obtaining  that  sweep  of  interna- 
tional affairs  of  which  we  in  America  catch 
hardly  a  glimpse  in  our  popular  magazines. 

But  the  best  of  the  reviews  is  "The  Round 
Table."  Men  like  Lionel  Curtis  Kerr  and 
A.  E.  Zimmern  are  working  here  at  the  prin- 
ciples of  reconstruction  for  industry  and  the 
empire.  It  is  solid,  close-wrought  work,  wres- 
tling at  the  problems  of  the  modern  world  with 
an  absence  of  theory  and  rhetoric.  No  other 
single  publication  has  had  the  influence  of  "The 
Round  Table"  in  directing  British  public  opinion. 
"The  Round  Table"  helped  to  prepare  the  ground 
for  the  changes  which  came  through  with  the  war. 
They  and  the  Fabian  group  and  the  Workers' 
Educational  Association  and  the  workers  them- 
selves have  between  them  sprung  the  most  dra- 
matic revolution  in  one  hundred  years,  and  it  is 
still  only  in  its  faint  beginnings. 

Somebody  is  going  to  tell  me  that  my  list  is  n't 
273 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

complete,  and  that  I  have  omitted  the  most 
weighty,  the  most  significant  paper  on  the  island. 
But  this  is  not  a  catalogue,  and  it  is  not  a  guide  to 
self-help.  It  is  merely  the  record  of  the  likes  of 
one  man  who  reads  for  pleasure.  So  let  them 
bring  forward  their  "Chamber's,"  "Hibbert 
Journal,"  "Quarterly  Review,"  and  "The  Edin- 
burgh," "Truth,"  "Cornhill,"  and  "The  New 
Age." 

FREE  SPEECH 

One  of  our  most  prominent  American  social 
workers  returned  home  the  other  day  from  a 
foreign  tour.  She  was  quoted  as  saying  that  she 
had  found  liberty  suppressed  everywhere.  A  mo- 
ment later  in  the  interview  it  appeared  that  her 
experience  in  England  consisted  in  cutting  across 
the  island  and  jumping  aboard  her  boat  at  Liver- 
pool. That  lets  her  out.  If  she  had  remained 
in  England  she  would  have  found  that  liberty  is  a 
lively  possession  there  just  now.  I  have  never 
before  seen  the  "subject"  act  with  so  much 
initiative  and  I  have  never  heard  him  express 
himself  so  vigorously.  Mr.  Bertrand  Russell 
receives  an  excellent  free  advertisement  from 

274 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

the  War  Office  for  his  views,  and  proceeds 
to  state  them  in  one  of  the  best  books  writ- 
ten in  recent  years,  "Why  Men  Fight."  The 
book  is  widely  advertised  and  favorably  reviewed. 
In  a  time  of  incalculable  strain  half  a  dozen 
conscientious  objectors  are  dealt  with  unjustly 
and  shamefully  while  some  thousands  are  dealt 
with  honorably.  And  conscientious  objectors 
are  only  two  per  cent,  of  the  total  number 
of  claimants  for  exemption.  These  others  are 
in  "reserved  trades,"  they  are  the  "sole  sup- 
port" of  a  family,  they  have  built  up  an  indi- 
vidual business.  And  of  all  these  cases,  only 
four  per  cent,  of  the  decisions  have  been  appealed 
against.  Conscientious  objectors  would  never 
have  been  heard  from  if  Parliament  had  not 
created  their  status.  There  are  no  conscientious 
objectors  in  Germany;  there  is  the  shooting- 
squad.  It  is  only  in  a  free  country  that  liberty 
can  "raise  a  rough  house."  England  is  a  free 
country.  There  are  plenty  of  criticisms  that  lie 
against  her  for  mental  sloth,  for  mistaken  foreign 
policy,  for  unconscious  and  deep  pride ;  but  a  man 
is  still  free  to  carry  out  his  policy  and  speak  his 
mind.  The  perfect  proof  is  this:  in  the  year 

375 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

1915  she  had  698  labor  strikes.  At  once  the 
vigilant  critic  of  England  will  say,  "The  laboring 
man  is  not  patriotic."  Let  me  first  point  out 
that  this  is  an  exactly  opposite  charge  from  the 
charge  that  he  has  lost  his  personal  liberty. 
Secondly,  it  is  untrue.  He  is  patriotic,  but  he 
feels  no  loyalty  toward  the  profit-makers.  The 
striking  miners  were  accused  of  holding  up  coal 
from  the  navy  and  endangering  the  battle-ship 
fleet.  But  they  showed  figures  to  a  friend  of 
mine  which  proved  the  exact  point  to  which  they 
could  proceed  with  their  strike  without  lessening 
the  source  of  supply  for  the  navy.  The  worker 
is  enough  of  a  man  to  die  for  his  country  or  work 
for  it  till  he  drops;  but  he  does  not  care  to  be 
exploited  by  profiteers  under  the  glib  phrases  of 
national  service.  The  labor  situation  to-day  is 
the  proof  that  England  is  free. 

But  England  has  no  publicity  sense.  She  ad- 
vertises all  her  blunders  and  crimes,  and  goes 
silent  when  she  does  well.  The  failure  of  Loos  is 
publicly  proclaimed.  The  Admiralty  competes 
with  the  War  Office  in  giving  bad  impressions  of 
great  things  done.  England  allows  freedom  of 
speech  in  Hyde  Park,  in  "The  Herald,"  "Com- 

876 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

mon  Sense,"  "The  Labor  Leader,"  "The  Na- 
tion," "Forward."  She  allows  it  to  Ramsay 
MacDonald,  Philip  Snowden,  Ponsonby,  Trevel- 
yan,  Lowes  Dickinson,  Lansbury,  Sylvia  Pank- 
hurs  t,  and  a  hundred  other  voices  and  organs  that 
continue  the  great  tradition  of  personal  liberty. 
But  when  she  restricts  one  man  from  the  muni- 
tions areas  she  uses  a  megaphone  to  tell  the  world 
that  liberalism  is  dead.  Wherever  the  War  Office 
has  stepped  in  and  encroached  on  the  liberty  of 
the  subject  and  the  claims  of  private  property,  the 
civil  courts  have  upheld  the  rights  of  the  person 
against  military  necessity.  A  series  of  decisions 
in  the  last  two  years  proves  this.  But  all  that 
England  speaks  of  is  the  Defense  of  the  Realm 
Act,  as  if  a  band  of  grim  officers  were  yanking 
struggling  civilians  into  penal  servitude.  When 
England  has  a  choice  offering  that  would  win 
praise  and  sympathy,  she  puts  a  veil  of  silence 
between  the  attraction  and  the  neutral  public. 
To  any  one  that  understands  England  this  is 
agreeable,  because  it  is  all  a  part  of  her  muddling 
greatness.  "Hands  off  her  ancient  liberties,'* 
and  the  hands  are  still  off.  But  to  an  outsider 
the  din  of  perennial,  lively  protest  seems  like  the 

277 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

wail  of  lost  souls,  a  race  sold  to  slavery.  It  has 
given  a  wrong  impression  to  America,  where  it 
is  not  yet  fully  realized  that  the  wealth  of  Eng- 
land and  the  industrial  work  of  England  are  the 
sources  of  strength  for  the  Allied  cause,  and  that 
the  Somme  offensive  is  only  the  gentle  prelude 
to  the  music  that  will  tune  up  in  Picardy  this 
spring.  And  yet  the  Somme  offensive  sucked  up 
the  German  forces  from  both  fronts,  let  Italy 
and  Russia  smash  ahead,  and  enabled  France  to 
shake  the  army  corps  from  Verdun.  The  big 
guns  and  the  shells  of  England's  four  thousand 
seven  hundred  controlled  shops  are  the  decisive 
factors  of  this  war.  A  set  of  rather  cocky 
German  officers  were  led  recently  through  the 
square  miles  of  preparedness  that  lie  back  of 
the  English  lines.  Their  expression  altered  as 
the  massed,  detailed  abundance  of  the  blow  that 
gathers  there  was  unfolded  before  their  trained 
eyes.  Home  was  never  like  this. 

Now,  while  it  is  a  pity  to  puzzle  us  who  are 
Americans,  there  is  no  serious  harm  in  it.  But 
the  real  demerit  of  putting  the  worst  foot  for- 
ward is  that  it  misleads  the  enemy  into  thinking 
there  is  n't  a  big  kick  coming  from  the  best  foot 

278 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

in  the  background.  I  am  a  peace-loving  man, 
and  in  the  interests  of  the  German  peasant  and 
clerk  I  wish  that  Germany  could  have  a  picture  of 
the  English  effort  which  is  only  in  the  first  arc 
of  its  ascending  curve.  The  Government  would 
then  withdraw  its  troops  on  all  fronts,  cede  Al- 
sace-Lorraine, sign  indemnities,  and  thank  their 
tribal  deity  for  the  easy  terms  of  peace.  The 
whole  English  effort  is  the  spectacle  of  a  democ- 
racy on  the  march.  It  is  accompanied  by  grum- 
bles and  mistakes,  and  is  as  haphazard  an  affair 
as  our  first  two  years  of  Civil  War;  but  back 
of  the  wasted  motion  is  an  inexhaustible 
strength. 

The  key  of  the  whole  performance  is  set  by  the 
British  army  and  navy.  No  one  has  caught  the 
essential  note  of  the  British  fighting  men.  Mr. 
Kipling  has  a  harsh  and  brutal  way  of  rendering 
the  affair.  Because  he  is  a  man  of  genius,  he 
creates  his  effect,  he  leaves  his  impression ;  but  his 
is  not  an  interpretation  of  the  spirit  of  these  men. 
Mr.  Noyes  has  cast  the  drama  on  sea  and  land 
in  an  heroic  Elizabethan  key,  but  a  modern 
democracy  does  not  play  up  to  his  setting.  It 
goes  about  things  in  its  own  way,  tight-lipped  in 

279 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

suffering,  and  good-humored  in  bad  weather. 
The  War  Office  ought  to  turn  some  one  loose 
among  the  million  in  Picardy  who  would  really 
capture  the  extraordinary  ensemble.  O.  Henry 
would  have  been  the  man  for  this  job. 

There  has  long  been  a  slang  phrase  for  a  man 
who  was  going  out  for  an  evening  of  pleasure  in 
the  West  End  of  London.  When  he  wished  to 
say  that  he  was  planning  a  jolly  supper  party  and 
an  evening  at  a  music  hall,  he  summed  it  up  by 
saying  he  was  "going  west."  The  men  at  the 
front  who  tell  of  the  death  of  a  comrade  say,  "He 
has  gone  west." 

The  British  Tommy  throws  a  lugubrious  exag- 
geration of  shrapnel  and  flies  and  trench-mud 
into  his  songs,  fills  his  chorus  with  expressions  of 
a  desire  to  go  home,  and  sticks  it  at  the  Somme. 
As  G.  K.  Chesterton  said  to  me : 

"The  English  people  have  never  found  their 
full  expression  in  religion  or  poetry.  It  is  in 
humor  where  the  English  nature  comes  through." 

The  popular  Tommy  attitude  toward  trench- 
life  is  that  of  "grousing,"  and  no  one  has  inter- 
preted this  so  well  as  one  of  the  men  at  the  front, 
Captain  Bruce  Bairnsfather.  He  gives  no  mock 

280 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

heroics  about  the  glory  of  sacrifice.  His  sketches 
are  a  humorously  disgusted  record  of  water 
underfoot,  rain  overhead,  barbed  wire,  sand-bags, 
and  Bully  beef.  I  doubt  if  any  other  nation  in 
the  moment  of  supreme  strain  would  circulate  his 
pamphlets  by  the  hundred  thousand  as  good 
recruiting  material. 

But  England  knows  that  if  she  quenched  free 
speech  she  would  lose  the  war.  She  would  lose 
the  war  because  she  would  be  destroying  the 
spirit  of  her  men,  which  escapes  the  mud  and  scum 
of  things  by  spattering  them  back  with  a  jest. 

Free  speech  is  a  fundamental  requirement  of 
English  nature.  The  Englishman  must  speak 
his  mind  openly,  register  his  "kick"  against  dis- 
comforts, and  be  "agin'  the  Government." 
With  that  clearance  he  settles  down  to  steady 
work.  No  one  knows  what  would  happen  if  the 
nation  were  thoroughly  muzzled.  The  attempt 
has  never  before  been  made.  It  has  been  made 
only  in  part  in  this  war. 

THE   RIGHT  OF  ASYLUM 

A  couple  of  critics  of  these  chapters  on  social 
change  have  said  that  I  am  too  buoyant  in  render- 

281 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

ing  a  painful  process.  The  reconstruction  is  not 
going  to  be  as  easy  as  all  that,  they  say.  Un- 
skilled labor  is  going  to  have  the  fight  of  its  life. 
Women  face  a  bitter  two  or  three  years.  The 
forces  of  reaction  have  been  strengthened  by 
three  years  of  militarism.  The  trade-unions 
have  been  shot  to  pieces  by  the  concessions  they 
have  made  under  the  munitions  acts.  The  gains 
which  cost  them  three  generations  to  achieve  have 
all  been  swept  away  and  will  never  be  restored. 
A  large  portion  of  the  press  has  been  nothing  but 
the  official  organ  for  doctored  news.  Many 
hundreds  of  men  are  in  jail  because  "Christianity 
has  become  punishable  by  ten  years'  penal  serv- 
itude under  the  Military  Service  Act"  (which  is 
a  pungent  reference  to  conscientious  objectors). 
I  have  given  a  wrong  impression  if  the  reader 
thinks  that  the  principle  of  democratic  control  is 
being  established  without  a  severe  fight;  but  the 
point  is  that  it  is  being  established.  When  one 
has  only  a  short  time  and  limited  space  at  dis- 
posal, it  is  hard  to  render  a  social  change  without 
either  writing  wordy  surface  generalizations  or 
else  getting  messed  up  with  details.  Perhaps  the 
simplest  way  of  making  clear  that  it  has  cost 

282 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

suffering  to  win  this  freedom,  and  yet  that  the 
victory  is  being  won,  is  to  consider  one  applica- 
tion of  democratic  control  in  these  years  of  stress. 

I  choose  the  "right  of  asylum"  to  prove  my 
point  that  England  still  champions  freedom.  It 
is  a  fair  choice,  because  the  right  of  asylum 
rocked  in  the  balance  and  nearly  went  under.  It 
was  violently  assailed  by  the  Scotland  Yard 
police  and  the  Government  itself,  but  the  Eng- 
lish people  rallied  and  saved  it.  The  hounding 
of  Russian  political  refugees  in  London,  which 
has  gone  on  under  cover  of  "military  necessity," 
probably  injured  the  English  cause  more  severely 
in  America  in  the  early  days  than  any  other 
official  blunder  of  the  war.  The  news  was 
spread  broadcast  among  our  social  workers. 

For  centuries  England  has  given  her  hos- 
pitality to  exiles  from  other  lands  who  had  fled 
from  tyranny.  To  her  in  time  of  persecution 
have  come  the  Huguenots,  Louis  Kossuth,  Maz- 
zini,  Karl  Marx,  Engels,  Bakunin,  Kropotkin, 
French  Communards,  and  now  for  many  years 
Russian  refugees.  As  one  of  the  peers  in  the 
House  of  Lords  said : 

It  has  been  our  boast  for  centuries  that  this  coun- 
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INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

try  is  a  hospitable  refuge  for  those  who  flee  from  other 
lands.  At  the  time  of  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholo- 
mew in  1572  and  of  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of 
Nantes  in  1685,  we  were  the  refuge  for  the  Huguenots. 
Victor  Hugo  came  to  Jersey  to  escape  from  the  des- 
potism of  Napoleon  III.  Those  who  have  sought  a 
refuge  here  have  been  subject  to  the  common  law, 
answerable  for  their  actions,  but  not  for  their  opinions. 

Under  cover  of  the  war  the  Scotland  Yard 
police  began  to  harass  the  Russian  refugees  in 
London.  They  attacked  the  Russian  Seamen's 
Union.  The  Russian  Seamen's  Union  exists  to 
fight  the  conditions  under  which  the  Russian 
sailors  work.  It  exposed  "the  beating  of  the 
men,  their  confinement  in  cages,  their  being  put 
in  chains,  deprived  of  food,  heavy  fines,  flogging." 
It  concerned  itself  with  the  conditions  of  the 
ships  and  the  low  wages.  By  the  Russian  com- 
bination law  the  right  to  organize  was  denied  to 
Russian  seamen,  so  their  union  had  to  locate  its 
center  of  activity  in  a  foreign  country,  and  chose 
Belgium.  It  was  driven  out  from  Antwerp  in 
October  of  1914  by  the  advance  of  the  German 
army.  It  crossed  to  London.  On  December 
20,  1915,  the  police  of  Scotland  Yard  raided  the 
office  of  the  union,  and  seized  the  documents,  in- 

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SOCIAL  STUDIES 

eluding  a  list  of  persons  in  Russia  with  whom  the 
union  corresponded.  At  the  same  time  the  home 
of  Dimitri  Anitchkin,  secretary  of  the  union,  was 
raided,  and  his  manuscripts  and  letters  for  ten 
years  back  were  confiscated.  So  heavy  and  far- 
reaching  was  the  hand  of  authority  that  when  the 
union  appealed  to  the  National  Sailors  and  Fire- 
men's Union  of  England,  the  general  secretary, 
E.  Cathery,  wrote: 

You  must  not  forget  you  are  a  foreigner  in  a  for- 
eign country,  although  you  belong  to  one  of  our  allies ; 
but  we  have  got  to  look  after  the  interest  of  our  coun- 
try at  present,  and  do  not  want  any  unpleasantness  at 
the  present  time.  Under  the  Defense  of  the  Realm  Act 
we  can  be  called  before  the  authorities  for  doing  things 
we  can  do  with  freedom  in  normal  times. 

A  little  group  of  English  people  saw  that  the 
ancient  right  of  asylum  was  about  to  be  abolished. 
So  they  made  their  appeal  to  the  British  trade- 
unions.  In  "The  Railway  Review,"  "The  York- 
shire Factory  Times,"  "The  Amalgamated  So- 
ciety of  Engineers  Journal,"  and  "The  Cotton 
Factory  Times"  they  saw  to  it  that  articles  of 
protest  appeared. 

But  the  police  were  determined  that  free 
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INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

speech  should  not  prevail.  A  labor  conference 
was  to  be  held  in  London  on  January  6,  1916, 
and  a  leaflet  had  been  prepared,  setting  out  the 
facts  of  the  attack  on  the  Russian  refugees,  and 
called  an  "Open  Letter  to  Trade  Unionists." 
Accordingly,  on  January  5,  the  police  raided  the 
headquarters  of  the  "Russian  Political  Prisoners' 
and  Exiles'  Relief  Committee,"  at  96  Lexham 
Gardens,  Kensington,  London.  They  seized 
one  thousand  copies  of  a  financial  report,  con- 
taining the  seditious  information  that  the  Wool- 
wich trades  council  had  given  six  pounds  to  the 
Russian  committee,  that  the  National  Union  of 
Railwaymen  of  Bletchley  had  given  fourteen 
shillings,  that  the  Independent  Labor  party  of 
Tantobie  had  contributed  eleven  shillings  and 
eightpence.  Exhilarated  by  their  success,  the 
police  proceeded  to  commandeer  the  reprints  in 
leaflet  form  of  the  articles  that  had  appeared  in 
"The  Railway  Review,"  "The  Yorkshire  Fac- 
tory Times,"  and  "The  Amalgamated  Society  of 
Engineers  Journal."  Nor  did  they  overlook  a 
thousand  copies  of  the  "Open  Letter  to  Trade 
Unionists,"  which  were  to  have  been  distributed 
on  the  next  day. 

Ml 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

The  home  secretary,  Mr.  Herbert  Samuel,  said 
to  the  House  of  Commons  on  July  11,  1916: 

"Russians  of  military  age  settling  in  this  coun- 
try will,  unless  they  prefer  to  return  for  military 
service  in  Russia,  be  required  to  enlist  in  the 
British  army.  The  details  of  the  scheme  are  now 
being  worked  out." 

They  were.  The  police  set  to  work  illegally 
and  without  due  authority  and  said  to  the  Rus- 
sian refugees : 

"You  have  to  go  back  to  Russia.  Here  is  your 
ticket;  you  are  to  be  at  Euston  Station  on  such 
and  such  a  day." 

Charles  Sarno  had  come  from  Russia  three 
years  previously.  An  order  was  served  upon 
him;  he  was  to  be  deported  to  Russia.  The 
order  was  challenged.  When  it  came  to  argu- 
ment the  representatives  of  the  crown  abandoned 
the  case.  Immediately  on  leaving  the  court, 
Sarno  was  again  arrested,  and  told  that  he 
was  to  be  put  on  board  a  ship  bound  for  Rus- 
sia. 

It  was  announced  in  the  House  of  Lords  that 
no  invitation  or  request  whatever  had  come  from 
the  Russian  Government  for  England  to  take 

887 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

this  action.  It  was  a  purely  spontaneous  and 
gratuitous  act  on  the  part  of  the  British  Home 
Office.  The  home  secretary  stated  it  was  quite 
false  that  he  had  ever  ordered  any  man  to  go  to 
Russia,  and  he  said  that  there  would  be  no  de- 
portations. Finally,  Lord  Sheffield,  on  July  27, 
1916,  made  a  well-reasoned  speech  to  the  House 
of  Lords  in  which  he  defended  the  right  of 
asylum,  lashed  the  Government  and  the  police, 
and  etched  the  eminent  Jewish  home  secretary, 
Mr.  Herbert  Samuel,  in  unforgettable  terms. 
He  said: 

"If  I  were  a  Jew  or  had  a  drop  of  Jewish  blood 
in  my  veins,  I  would  sooner  cut  my  hand  off  than 
say  to  one  of  these  men,  'If  you  do  not  enlist  in 
the  British  army,  you,  being  a  Polish  Jew,  shall 
go  back,  not  where  you  like,  to  any  part  of  the 
world,  but  to  Poland  or  to  Russia.' ' 

Earl  Russell  stood  side  by  side  with  Lord 
Sheffield  in  defying  the  Government  policy,  and 
once  again,  as  on  more  occasions  than  one  in 
British  history,  the  lords  saved  the  liberty  of  the 
individual  men  from  the  encroachments  of  the 
Government  and  the  indifference  of  the  Com- 
mons. The  English  people  had  no  wish,  of 

288 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

course,  for  this  tyranny.  They  had  no  knowl- 
edge of  it.  Graham  Wallas  has  warned  us 
against  the  modern  conception  of  the  "Psychology 
of  the  Crowd."  He  has  warned  us  against  seeing 
populations  as  individually  thoughtful  and  tem- 
perate and  collectively  blind  and  ferocious.  It 
is  the  fallacy  of  our  generation  to  believe  that 
whole  peoples  go  insane  in  a  wild  swirl,  and  do 
this  thing  and  wish  that  thing  by  imitation  and 
suggestion  and  sympathy.  Of  course  political 
movements  are  in  fact  carried  out  "by  men  con- 
scious and  thoughtful,  though  necessarily  ill  in- 
formed," and  these  movements  seem  to  the  slack 
observer,  fed  on  our  popular  sociologists,  "to  be 
due  to  the  blind  and  unconscious  impulses  of 
masses  'incapable  both  of  reflection  and  reason- 
ing.' '  It  is  so  with  the  right  of  asylum  and  the 
suppression  of  the  Russians.  The  English  peo- 
ple have  not  gone  war-mad.  They  have  not 
risen  up  to  overthrow  the  principles  Of  freedom 
and  justice  for  which  they  have  in  the  main  long 
contended. 

But  under  cover  of  the  war,  when  the  attention 
of  millions  of  the  inhabitants  was  strained  on 
another  matter,  a  little  group  of  militarists,  pol- 

289 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

iticians,  and  policemen  have  tried  to  carry  out  a 
reactionary  program.  It  is  familiar  to  all  stu- 
dents of  the  institution  of  police  that  it  is  the 
tendency  of  their  practice  at  times  of  strain  to 
"take  away  a  man's  character  by  administrative 
decree  on  secret  police  information."  It  is  not 
that  they  fail  to  act  honestly  on  the  best  of  their 
"information  and  belief " ;  it  is  that  the  secret  and 
one-sided  examination,  followed  by  peremptory 
action,  is  not  a  perfect  method  for  establishing 
truth.  "Spy,"  "crook,"  "anarchist,"  and  "per- 
vert" are  words  for  them  that  do  duty  in  place  of 
public  legal  procedure. 

The  attempts  to  harass  Russian  refugees  have 
been  fewer  and  feebler  since  Lord  Sheffield  spoke. 
In  November  the  British  authorities  removed 
four  Russians  from  a  Danish  ship,  but  their  case 
was  tried  in  open  court.  And  in  a  case  tried  on 
the  same  day,  January  11  of  this  year,  concern- 
ing a  French  political  refugee,  the  lord  chief- 
justice  laid  down  the  British  law  for  all  such 
cases,  and  restored  the  ancient  tradition  of  the 
nation.  He  said: 

"Parliament  had  not  given  the  home  secretary 
power  to  make  an  order  which  would  forcibly 

290 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

remove  a  man  from  this  country  to  another 
country  to  which  he  did  not  wish  to  go." 

English  justice  refused  to  be  muzzled  by  con- 
scription, munitions  acts,  military  service  acts, 
and  the  Defense  of  the  Realm  Act.  So  ended 
the  second  chapter  of  this  record.  Chapter  one 
showed  certain  English  authorities  as  stupid  as 
the  police  of  Chicago  and  New  York  during 
"anarchist"  flurries.  Chapter  two  revealed  the 
English  people  as  alert  in  the  defense  of  freedom 
as  in  the  days  before  the  war.  The  right  of 
asylum  had  been  reaffirmed. 

Then  came  chapter  three,  with  the  entrance 
of  the  new  British  Government.  The  new  Gov- 
ernment represents  the  triumph  of  the  executive 
over  the  Parliamentary  legislative  division  of 
authority.  Mr.  Bonar  Law  announced  on  Feb- 
ruary 27  to  the  House  of  Commons  that  Russians 
in  England  must  enlist  as  British  soldiers  or  be 
deported  to  Russia.  On  the  same  day  at  the 
Old-Street  Police  Court  the  Magistrate  said  to 
David  Cohen,  a  Russian: 

We  do  not  want  you  here  if  you  are  not  going  to  do 
your  duty.  If  you  succeed  in  proving  that  you  are  of 

291 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

Russian  nationality,  I  shall  do  my  best  to  get  you  sent 
back. 


On  March  7, 1  attended  a  debate  in  the  House 
of  Lords,  where  Lord  Sheffield  pointed  out  that 
the  home  of  an  Englishwoman  had  been  raided 
while  she  was  held  in  prison  with  no  charge  made 
against  her,  and  in  her  absence  papers  were  con- 
fiscated. These  papers  were  pamphlets  in  de- 
fense of  the  right  of  asylum.  Lord  Sheffield 
then  cited  the  case  of  a  Russian  refugee  in  Lon- 
don who  wished  to  return  to  the  United  States, 
where  he  had  taken  out  his  first  naturalization 
papers.  The  letter  of  the  Home  Office  was  pro- 
duced in  evidence,  and  this  letter  refused  the  Rus- 
sian's request. 

The  Secretary  of  State  for  War,  the  Earl  of 
Derby,  replied  for  the  Government.  He  said 
that  one  of  the  seized  pamphlets,  entitled  "The 
Right  of  Asylum,"  was  of  such  a  character  as  to 
make  it  unfit  for  circulation  at  this  time.  Very 
skilfully  he  created  an  "atmosphere"  about  that 
pamphlet,  so  that  the  listener  felt  that  it  was 
treasonable  and  seditious.  But  I  possess  a  copy 
of  that  pamphlet,  and  it  is  not  unfit  for  circula- 

292 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

tion  in  a  free  country.  It  is  an  appeal  by  Lon- 
don Russians  not  to  be  sent  back.  It  is  simply 
that. 

The  "noble  Earl"  went  on  to  refer  to  one  of 
the  societies  of  Russians  as  suspicious,  and  there- 
fore a  fair  field  for  official  investigation.  He 
forgot  that  he  was  defending  an  official  policy 
which  would  place  those  suspicious  persons  in  the 
army. 

The  Lord  Chancellor  spoke  next.  Lord  Fin- 
lay,  the  present  Lord  Chancellor,  is  always  worth 
hearing,  because  he  is  naive.  It  was  he  who,  in 
a  debate  on  admitting  women  as  solicitors,  said: 

The  question  is:  What  is  the  proper  sphere  of 
women?  I  do  not  believe  that  the  active  practice  of  a 
profession  is  compatible  with  the  proper  work  of  women 
as  mothers  and  in  attending  to  their  families.  I  regret 
that  there  are  many  women  who  do  not  have  an  oppor- 
tunity of  marriage  in  this  country.  Probably  in  time 
opportunities  will  be  found  for  them  in  other  parts  of 
the  Empire  where  they  can  become  the  mothers  of 
mighty  nations. 

In  the  present  debate  on  the  right  of  Asylum, 
he  was  equally  delightful  when  he  said  that  the 

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INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

Russian  political  refugees  owed  a  duty  to  their 
nation,  Russia. 

Lord  Sheffield  was  snowed  under  by  these 
vigorous  reactionaries,  and  the  old  man  hobbled 
away  on  two  canes.  But  for  all  that,  he  had 
made  it  clear  that  an  ancient  right  was  being  re- 
moved by  executive  decree,  instead  of  by  con- 
stitutional methods.  If  the  British  people  wish 
to  abolish  the  right  of  asylum,  they  should  be  per- 
mitted to  do  so  by  Act  of  Parliament. 

No  nation,  with  all  its  young  men  in  the  field, 
will  tolerate  the  presence  of  non-combatant  aliens, 
filling  the  jobs  vacated  by  the  citizen  army.  The 
Mayor  of  Bethnal  Green  said  recently. 

Men  have  to  sacrifice  their  little  businesses  or  their 
small  factories  to  serve  at  the  front,  and  neighbors  of 
foreign  parentage  step  into  their  places  and  reap  the 
reward. 

Two  other  mayors  of  East  London,  represen- 
tatives of  the  borough  councils,  local  tribunals, 
and  of  the  London  County  Council,  supported  his 
statement  and  passed  a  resolution  calling  on 
Parliament  to  remedy  the  evil.  The  alien  must 
be  willing  to  defend  the  nation  in  which  he  makes 

294 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

his  residence  or  else  leave  for  some  other  land 
not  under  war-pressure.  But  he  should  receive 
the  right  to  select  his  destination.  To  force  him 
to  return  to  a  country  which  would  imprison  him, 
is  as  unjust  as  it  is  for  him  to  claim  protection  in 
a  country  which  he  is  unwilling  to  defend. 

PUBLIC  OPINION 

England  would  have  been  one  more  quiet, 
comfortable  power  of  the  second  rank  but  for  its 
northern  and  western  counties.  Its  recent  his- 
tory would  have  been  the  history  of  Holland  if 
it  had  not  been  for  the  storehouse  of  coal  and  iron 
in  the  industrial  provinces.  It  was  out  of  them, 
and  out  of  the  people  bred  there,  that  she  has 
derived  her  vast  strength  in  meeting  the  new 
world  created  by  the  industrial  revolution  that 
came  in  one  century  ago  on  the  invention  of 
machinery.  Those  northern  and  western  parts 
of  Great  Britain  have  won  the  fight  of  democ- 
racy, and  established  the  principle  of  democratic 
control.  What  we  used  to  mean  by  England 
was  southern  England.  It  was  Oxford,  Cam- 
bridge, and  London.  The  genius  and  the  vital- 
ity of  the  kingdom  were  gathered  there,  and  the 

£95 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

radiations  went  out  from  those  centers  to  make 
the  impress  of  what  the  world  knew  as  English 
influence. 

Imperceptibly  the  change  has  come.  The 
governing  class  has  ceased  to  govern.  The  type 
of  Englishman  who  was  born  to  rule  is  left  with- 
out a  job.  Power  and  virtue  have  departed 
from  the  old  order.  The  Oxford  and  Cambridge 
hierarchy  exist  in  a  vacuum.  Patriarchal  Eng- 
land, reared  in  the  humanities,  impervious  to 
modern  ideas,  indifferent  to  alien  points  of  view, 
unconsciously  arrogant,  heavily  stupid,  kindly, 
cultivated,  and  honorable,  was  unfitted  to  the 
modern  world  of  quick  thinking,  swift  action, 
sympathetic  cooperation.  It  is  dying  in  our 
sight.  In  the  first  weeks  of  war  the  shell  of  that 
little  England  collapsed ;  the  organism  itself  had 
long  since  weakened.  In  its  place  has  arisen  a 
far  more  formidable,  far  more  democratic  state, 
the  British  commonwealth. 

As  fast  as  power  shifts  a  psychological  change 
takes  place.  The  English  nature  and  character 
are  visibly  altering.  A  swifter  order  of  men  are 
in  control.  The  men  of  power  show  Celtic  char- 
acteristics. Under  the  touch  of  the  new  influ- 

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SOCIAL  STUDIES 

ence,  which  is  industrial  and  democratic,  there 
is  a  brightening  and  quickening.  The  old  inartic- 
ulateness passes.  The  race  grows  talkative.  It 
responds  to  excitement. 

Public  opinion,  as  it  reverberates  in  London,  is 
no  longer  the  public  opinion  of  Great  Britain. 
It  is  not  the  public  opinion  of  the  Cornwall 
miners,  of  the  South  Wales  miners,  of  the  indus- 
trial centers  of  Liverpool,  Birmingham,  Man- 
chester, and  Glasgow.  It  is  not  the  public 
opinion  of  Montreal,  and  Sydney.  London  and 
the  south  of  England  do  not  speak  for  the  com- 
monwealth. "The  Manchester  Guardian"  un- 
derstands the  sentiment  of  Glasgow  and  Mont- 
real, but  the  London  "Morning  Post"  does 
not. 

When  Lloyd-George  struck  out  his  brilliant 
suggestion  for  Ireland — a  suggestion  which  will 
bring  the  solution  of  a  question  seven  hundred 
years  old — he  spoke  the  requiem  of  the  England 
known  to  us  in  memoirs,  novels,  and  letters ;  the 
England  of  our  college  literary  course,  of  the  his- 
toric tradition,  the  caste  system,  the  landed  gen- 
try, the  noble  lady,  the  faithful  servitor,  the  hack- 
ney coachman,  the  genial  vicar,  and  the  Oxford 

397 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

don.  He  proposed  that  the  matter  of  Ireland  be 
handed  over  to  the  imperial  conference,  the  con- 
gress of  the  five  democracies.  England's  time 
had  gone.  She  could  n't  solve  the  ancient  wrong, 
but  the  new  commonwealth  could  solve  it.  Take 
it  away  from  the  tired  kingdom,  and  give  it  to 
the  young  democracy.  Government  is  no  longer 
an  affair  of  historic  tradition.  It  is  a  very  trou- 
blesome matter  of  digging  out  the  facts,  and  ap- 
plying them  to  brand-new  and  rapidly  changing 
conditions.  It  requires  qualities  of  swift  decision 
and  execution.  Industrial  working-class  Eng- 
land takes  over  the  Government,  assumes  control 
of  life,  and  side  by  side  with  radical  Scotland  and 
Wales  and  Australia  and  Canada  creates  the  new 
state.  With  the  passing  of  Little  England,  the 
"literary"  Englishman  whom  we  have  known 
passes,  the  courtly  and  simple  nobleman,  the 
charming  litterateur,  the  "scholar  and  gentle- 
man," and  there  comes  in  his  stead  a  democratic 
person,  open  to  ideas,  willing  to  learn,  and  very 
willing  to  work  out  in  partnership  the  problems 
of  democratic  control. 

There  are  clever  men  who  are  attempting  to 
capture  this  newer  England  and  to  manipulate 

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SOCIAL  STUDIES 

its  public  opinion.  They  discern  certain  of  the 
creative  elements  in  the  change,  organization, 
efficiency,  business  methods,  government  by  ex- 
perts. Two  such  men  are  Horatio  Bottomley  and 
Lord  Northcliffe.  Through  "John  Bull,"  "The 
Times,"  "The  Daily  Mail,"  and  other  publications 
they  wield  a  wide  influence.  Bottomley  and 
Northcliffe  are  of  the  familiar  type  of  American 
company  promoter.  They  are  a  mixture  of  the 
politician  and  the  financier.  They  have  a  tough 
masculine  geniality,  a  shrewd  common  sense,  and 
what  is  called  "an  understanding  of  human 
nature,"  which  means  a  knack  of  playing  on  the 
coarser  impulses  and  motives  of  the  democracy. 
Essentially  they  are  bad  leaders,  because  they 
don't  believe  in  the  best  qualities  of  the  masses 
of  men  whom  they  are  leading.  They  see  that 
average  human  nature  is  easily  flattered,  is  loaded 
to  the  gunwale  with  prejudices,  and  that  it  can 
be  manipulated  by  phrases  promising  action. 
Excitement,  change,  the  sense  of  "something 
doing,"  are  pleasurable  to  the  average  man.  A 
newspaper  program  which  "makes  and  unmakes" 
ministers,  creates  heroes  and  villains,  wrecks  and 
reconstructs,  gives  a  continuous  performance  of 

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INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

moving  pictures  to  its  readers.  In  the  flicker  of 
the  film  ideas  and  true  political  policy  lose  their 
sovereignty.  By  making  use  of  the  new  forces  of 
democracy,  such  men  as  the  modern  popular 
journalists  may  have  it  in  their  power  a  little  to 
misdirect  them.  This  failure  of  sane  public 
opinion  to  register  itself  is  almost  inevitable  in  a 
society  where  the  millionaire  proprietor  is  able  to 
conduct  a  chain  of  newspapers  which  reflect  his 
own  mind,  and  which  misrepresent  his  readers  in 
certain  matters  by  giving  them  what  they  want 
in  the  general  news  of  the  world,  in  pictures,  and 
admirable  special  articles,  and  in  hammering 
through  a  program  of  reconstruction,  much  of 
which  is  sound  and  responsive  to  the  needs  of  the 
community. 

I  am  trying  to  untangle  what  seems  to  me  the 
silent  and  real  opinion  of  the  nation  from  the 
voices  that  fill  the  air.  Any  one  would  be  sin- 
gularly inept  who  pretended  to  interpret  with 
any  finality  the  public  opinion  of  a  people. 
What  I  give  is  merely  the  product  of  contacts 
with  a  few  thousand  British.  The  experience  is 
all  necessarily  incomplete  and  superficial.  This 
is  offered  merely  as  what  I  have  seen  and  heard. 

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SOCIAL  STUDIES 

It  is  a  collection  of  little  fragments  of  public 
opinion. 

The  stuff  talked  in  certain  London  centers  is 
misleading  and  mischievous  and  sometimes  wil- 
fully malicious.  It  is  the  bitter  cry  of  persons 
who  have  lost  their  influence.  There  are  little 
groups  of  elderly  men  and  women  in  London  who 
inflame  themselves  with  hate  of  the  German 
people.  They  speak  of  them  as  a  nation  of 
beasts,  outside  the  human  race.  This  is  very 
unrepresentative  of  English  public  opinion, 
which  has  made  the  clear  distinction  in  its  mind 
between  the  doped,  duped  German  people  and 
the  band  of  predatory  assassins  who  are  in  con- 
trol of  them. 

Again,  on  Ireland,  I  can  quote  an  English 
officer,  whom  I  heard  say  on  his  return  from 
Dublin : 

"Remove  the  Nationalist  politicians  from 
Westminster.  Suppress  the  Irish  newspapers. 
Then  give  them  conscription.  They  will  yield." 

He  and  "The  Morning  Post"  represent  that 
minute  fraction  of  "die  hards"  who  feel  the  tide 
floating  them  down  the  beach  and  try  to  dig  their 
heels  into  the  sand.  The  will  of  the  British 

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INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

people  is  for  a  settlement  of  the  Irish  question. 
There  is  no  hatred  of  Ireland  among  the  masses 
of  the  community.  The  desire  of  the  average 
Englishman  is  to  be  let  alone  and  to  let  other 
people  alone. 

It  is  always  necessary  to  find  out  whether  a 
statement  of  opinion  represents  the  mass  con- 
sciousness or  whether  it  is  spoken  from  personal 
bitterness  and  class  interest.  I  can  quote  Leo 
Maxse,  who  writes  in  his  "National  Review," 
"There  is  nothing  in  common  between  the  stand- 
point of  the  civilized  part  of  Europe  and  the 
United  States."  But  I  am  quoting  a  shrill  and 
lonely  voice.  The  mass  of  people  in  England 
are  as  unaware  of  America  as  the  middle  West  is 
unaware  of  England.  They  are  not  scornful  or 
antagonistic.  They  are  indifferent  with  the  large 
indifference  of  ignorance.  In  the  part  of  the 
English  community  who  are  aware  of  the  United 
States  as  the  "big  show,"  to  quote  a  Broad  Street 
cotton  broker,  there  is  little  resentment  and  much 
good-will.  The  "Tommy,"  the  farmer,  the  shop- 
keeper, when  he  meets  the  individual  American, 
has  the  tolerance  of  his  kind  for  all  alien  folk  that 
come  from  some  other  country  than  his  own. 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

They  all  seem  a  little  strange  to  him,  but  they  are 
"all  right."  He  includes  the  American  with  the 
Australian  and  the  Welshman. 

Public  opinion,  then,  is  not  really  concerned  at 
all  with  exterminating  German  clerks,  oppress- 
ing Irish  peasants,  annoying  American  business 
men.  It  is  not  "out"  to  govern  the  world  or  rule 
"backward  races." 

What  are  its  concerns  ? 

Its  main  concern  at  the  moment  is  to  go  through 
with  a  bad  job  to  the  end,  to  win  a  victory  in  order 
to  have  a  lasting  peace.  Englishmen  hate  war, 
and  they  were  first  astonished,  then  irritated, 
and  finally  angry  that  any  nation  should  let  loose 
a  hideous  slaughter  into  a  fairly  peaceable  world. 
They  were  slow  to  believe  German  methods  of 
frightfulness.  In  the  early  months  I  could  get  a 
hearing,  but  little  credence,  for  the  atrocities  I 
had  witnessed.  A  good-natured  skepticism  was 
the  response.  But  once  thoroughly  in  a  nasty 
business,  they  are  now  determined  to  see  it 
through.  They  will  hang  on.  It  is  hard  for 
them  to  pry  loose  when  they  have  taken  hold. 
When  their  clutch  has  automatically  clicked  and 
got  set,  there  seems  to  be  no  device  in  the  machin- 

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INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

ery  for  setting  itself  free.  And  that  offers  the 
chance  for  the  imperialists,  with  their  "spheres  of 
influence"  and  territorial  claims,  to  turn  what 
was  idealistic  in  the  early  purposes  of  the  young 
men  to  their  own  advantage.  "Why  should  n't 
England  take  a  bit  in  return  for  the  sacrifice?" 
One  hears  this  idea  occasionally  expressed.  This 
is  not  the  will  of  England.  The  vast  majority 
went  into  the  war  in  a  spirit  of  devotion,  and  they 
wish  to  come  out  of  it  as  clean-handed  and  clean- 
minded  as  they  entered. 

There  is  a  powerful  peace  movement,  not 
representing  anything  approaching  a  majority. 
It  is,  in  fact,  a  small  fraction  of  the  community; 
but  I  call  it  powerful  because  it  worries  the 
authorities,  and  because  it  is  growing,  though 
very  slowly.  The  impression  which  Mr.  Trevel- 
yan  has  given  to  America  of  a  wide-spread  desire 
for  an  immediate  peace — a  desire  muzzled  from 
expression  by  the  authorities — is  false ;  but  there 
is  an  increasing  receptivity  to  the  idea  of  peace. 

The  next  concern  of  public  opinion  is  with  the 
internal  situation.  The  mind  of  the  man  belong- 
ing to  the  upper  possessing  class  has  become 
accustomed  to  change.  For  a  generation  he  has 

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SOCIAL  STUDIES 

felt  the  foundation  growing  unsteady.  The  in- 
stitutions which  seemed  to  him  immutable  are 
visibly  modifying — the  institutions  of  property, 
church,  and  marriage.  He  is  not  in  favor  of  the 
ever-spreading  change,  but  he  has  mentally 
accepted  the  fact  that  change  is  taking  place. 
The  old  authority  has  passed  to  other  hands,  and 
he  is  bewildered  by  the  juggle  which  has  trans- 
formed upper-class  rule  into  democratic  control. 
Nothing  in  itself  now  surprises  him,  because  the 
whole  process  is  amazing.  Without  a  protest  he 
has  seen  state  socialism  installed  at  Westminster 
and  feminism  at  the  War  Office.  Patiently  he 
awaits  what  will  happen  next  and  what  will  come 
of  it  all.  What  has  been  undermined  is  "a 
certain  organic  conception  of  society — the  con- 
ception of  the  hierarchy  of  authorities  which 
dominated  the  Middle  Ages.  The  old  order  has 
been  destroyed  by  the  new  ideals  of  justice  and 
liberty,  beginning  with  religion,  passing  on  to 
politics,"  modifying  industry,  "and  reaching  at 
last  the  private  relations  of  marriage  and  the 
family."  These  new  ideals  have  penetrated  the 
thought  of  the  community,  and  have  gradually 
sought  fulfilment  in  the  lagging,  painful  proc- 

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INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

esses  of  legislation.  The  older  type  of  politician 
was  unable  to  frame  such  revolutionary  concepts 
into  acts,  so  what  has  happened  is  the  creation  of 
a  new  order  of  civil  servants.  "What  is  grow- 
ing, rapidly,  and  yet  almost  unobserved  by  the 
public,  is  expert  legislation  by  permanent  offi- 
cials." 

It  is  small  wonder  that  the  elderly,  kindly 
gentleman  whom  we  have  taken  as  representative 
of  his  class  is  dazed  by  the  shifting  world  of  flux 
where  once  he  stood  firmly.  He  is  on  a  moving- 
sidewalk,  and  he  is  quite  sure  he  is  under  way, 
though  he  himself  is  not  walking.  But  not  only 
is  that  gentle  conservative  puzzled  by  the  ad- 
vance; the  general  public  have  not  intellectually 
realized  the  change  which  their  own  impulse 
toward  freedom  has  created.  Public  opinion 
to-day  is  constantly  in  the  attitude  of  a  man  who 
has  his  desires  answered  before  he  has  stated 
them.  The  democratic  state  is  moving  faster 
than  the  individual  citizen,  and  he  is  mentally  con- 
fused. The  moving  finger  writes,  and  public 
opinion  will  have  to  find  its  place  in  the  appendix 
to  the  Book  of  Acts,  recording  the  establishment 
of  democratic  control  during  the  Great  War. 

306 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

WHERE  THE  LANE   TURNS 

A  letter  has  come  to  me  from  a  friend.  He 
is  a  charming  writer,  fellow  of  a  Cambridge 
college.  He  objects  to  my  summary  dismissal 
of  the  older  England  as  recorded  in  the  preceding 
chapter.  He  says : 

"If  ever  there  was  a  typical  Oxford  man,  with 
an  Oxford  cast  of  thought  in  the  direct  Oxford 
tradition,  it  is  H.  A.  L.  Fisher,  the  new  minister 
of  education.  The  new  ministry  of  labor,  being 
forced  to  get  a  permanent  head  capable  of  deal- 
ing with  the  problems  they  are  up  against,  does 
not  get  a  trade-union  leader,  but  an  Eton-Balliol 
scholar  and  fellow  of  All  Souls.  I  am  afraid,  as 
a  narrow-minded  pedant,  I  am  convinced  that 
brains  are  what  always  tell  in  the  long  run,  and 
I  don't  think  commerce  or  "life"  or  the  newer 
universities  are  yet  the  equal  of  the  old  univer- 
sities in  producing  and  training  brain.  More- 
over, Oxford  and  Cambridge  are  not  "south  of 
England,"  as  you  suggest.  Their  geographical 
position  has  nothing  to  do  with  their  nature. 
They  are  the  oldest  and  most  independent  repub- 
lics in  England  and  totally  ex-territorial,  like  the 
city  of  Washington." 

307 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

Of  course  he  is  exactly  right,  and  I  believe  we 
are  both  right.  Now  is  the  meeting  of  the  old 
and  new,  and  even  a  profound  modification  of 
structure  will  include  vestigial  traces.  Every 
summary  statement  concerning  so  complex  a 
thing  as  the  modern  community  must  wait  for 
verification  on  psychological  records  which  have 
not  yet  been  made.  "Crowd  psychology"  is  still 
in  the  hands  of  hasty  generalizers  and  pseudo- 
scientists,  who  write  of  the  "herd  instinct."  So 
it  is  with  this  book.  It  is  a  personal  impression, 
and  it  paints  in  broad  colors.  A.  E.  Zimmern  of 
the  reconstruction  committee,  H.  N.  Spalding  of 
the  welfare  department  of  the  ministry  of  muni- 
tions, and  Dr.  Fisher,  the  minister  of  education, 
have  all  cautioned  me  against  over-emphasizing 
the  speed  of  change  in  so  stable  a  community  as 
the  British  nation  and  against  making  too  logical 
and  intellectualistic  an  analysis  of  British  char- 
acter. The  Briton  is  a  sociable,  humorsome 
fellow  who  moves  slowly  and  is  not  logical  in  his 
ways,  but  proceeds  along  the  lines  of  his  own 
individualistic  psychology  in  contact  with  his  own 
peculiar  and  ancient  environment. 

But  a  reconstruction  is  under  way.  A  peace- 
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SOCIAL  STUDIES 

able,  slow-moving  race  has  been  swept  by  the 
winds  of  doctrine  and  the  forces  of  change. 
Great  questions  are  suddenly  opened  that  were 
regarded  as  settled  or  non-existent,  or  buried  in 
the  silence  of  respectability.  Let  me  show  the 
method  of  that  change  in  the  concrete  instance  of 
education.  Two  systems  of  education  exist 
to-day  in  England  side  by  side.  There  is  the 
long-established  system  of  private  education  for 
the  upper  class  by  the  great  schools  of  Eton, 
Harrow,  Rugby,  Westminster,  and  the  universi- 
ties of  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  There  is  public 
education  by  local  boards  and  new  universities. 
The  two  systems  are  unrelated,  and  so,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  a  national  system  of  education, 
they  are  anomalous. 

But  because  there  is  this  anomaly,  it  does  not 
follow  that  the  reconstruction  will  "hack  its  way 
through."  The  process  will  be  a  filtration,  and 
not  a  surgical  operation.  Slowly  the  great 
universities  will  be  modernized,  and  steadily  the 
new  institutions  will  be  urged  to  aim  at  the  level 
of  culture  which  the  humanities  gave.  A  "bread- 
and-butter"  education  alone  will  never  be  the 
one  aim  of  English  instruction.  The  arts  alone 

809 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

will  never  again  be  in  sole  command  of  the  field. 
But  a  new  program  will  be  wrought  out  of  both 
sets  of  values. 

From  a  certain  public  school  twenty-seven  out 
of  twenty-eight  scholarships  to  the  university 
were  taken  in  the  humanities.  It  is  improbable 
that  twenty-seven  out  of  twenty-eight  represents 
the  actual  proportion  in  aptitude  of  that  group 
for  a  literary  culture  as  contrasted  with  a  sci- 
entific culture.  The  probable  proportion  would 
be  more  like  fourteen  for  the  humanities,  and 
fourteen  for  the  science.  To  redress  that  balance 
will  be  the  task  of  the  coming  reconstruction,  and 
it  will  be  achieved  without  upsetting  the  English 
temperament  and  tradition. 

One  elementary  school  differs  from  another  as 
widely  as  an  elementary  school  differs  from  Har- 
row. To  level  up  elementary  schools  to  standard 
without  invading  local  autonomy  is  another  dif- 
ficult task  of  the  reconstruction.  A  few  years  ago 
education  was  decentralized,  and  the  local  boards, 
by  refusing  government  grants,  can  separate  their 
local  institution  from  the  national  system.  Not 
by  offending  these  local  boards  can  the  better- 
ment come.  The  Government,  by  its  financial 

310 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

grants  and  by  wise  suggestion,  can,  however, 
influence  the  local  boards  to  modern  methods. 
Little  by  little  modern  educators  will  sit  on  those 
boards,  and  two  men  of  forward-looking  mind 
can  swing  a  session  of  "stand-patters."  It  may 
be,  at  some  point  in  the  future,  that  full  control 
of  education  will  pass  back  to  a  central  authority, 
and  that  what  is  now  advisory  will  become  man- 
datory. But  the  public  are  far  from  ready  to 
accept  such  a  change,  and  the  local  boards  will 
continue  to  be  the  machinery  through  which  the 
minister  of  education  will  operate. 

The  period  of  adolescence  of  the  working- 
class  population  will  be  gradually  dealt  with. 
Between  fourteen  and  eighteen  years  of  age  there 
is  a  vast  waste  of  vocational  and  cultural  po- 
tentiality in  the  child.  That  waste  is  clearly 
recognized.  The  youngster  as  yet  goes  out  from 
board  school  into  blind-ally  jobs,  which  leave  him 
as  unskilled  and  ignorant  as  an  adult.  Contin- 
uation schools,  a  system  of  part-time  work  and 
part-time  instruction,  a  raising  of  the  school  age, 
more  pay,  and  better  teachers — these  and  a  dozen 
other  details  will  all  be  handled  by  the  method  I 
have  outlined,  which  is  never  slashing  and  drastic 

311 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

reform  by  an  autocratic  state.  It  is  largely  the 
extension  of  an  ancient  practice  to  a  wider  group. 
It  is  partly  the  response  of  a  flexible  system  to 
new  knowledge.  It  is  a  gradual  method,  "brick 
on  brick,"  as  is  the  English  way.  But  when  the 
builders  have  completed  their  task,  the  structure 
will  be  new  in  the  eyes  of  the  community,  and  the 
institution  housed  there  will  be  as  little  like  the 
"Eton-Balliol"  institution  as  King  George  Vs 
commonwealth  is  like  King  George  IV's  Eng- 
land. 

The  old  system  of  education  produced  a  gov- 
erning class,  a  group  of  men  of  integrity  and 
trained  intelligence.  They  legislated,  colonized, 
hunted,  and  followed  the  life  of  culture  with  dis- 
tinction, and  they  continued  to  make  England 
the  greatest  of  the  nations.  As  long  as  the  old 
formulae  and  the  old  ethics  were  sufficient,  the 
inheritors  of  that  tradition  were  the  inevitable 
masters  of  government.  But  suddenly  the  two 
aspects  of  government  made  an  astonishing  turn. 
Control  of  the  environment  entered  on  a  new 
development  with  the  coming  of  steam-power  and 
machinery.  The  peasant  and  yeoman  com- 
munity passed  out  of  existence.  The  land  went 

312 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

back  to  grass.  Industrial  cities  and  massed  pop- 
ulations came  in.  And  that  new  control  of  the 
environment  altered  the  other  aspect  of  govern- 
ment— the  relationship  of  man  to  man.  Indus- 
trial organization  created  new  alinements  of 
party,  interest,  and  class.  The  governing  class 
began  to  flutter  in  a  world  not  realized,  like  the 
thin-voiced  shades  about  Ulysses.  But  the  mass 
of  the  people,  to  whom  the  power  passed,  have 
not  yet  found  their  leaders. 

Two  civilizations  are  coexistent  here.  One  is 
a  very  ancient  and  noble  civilization.  The  other 
is  new  and  chaotic,  caught  in  the  process  of 
becoming.  The  ancient  civilization  was  sure  of 
itself,  possessing  a  tradition  and  code  of  action. 
The  new  is  too  busy  to  develop  a  technic  of  life  or 
manner.  It  does  n't  know  where  it  is  going,  but 
it  is  on  the  way.  The  effect  is  that  of  electric 
lighting  in  Warwick  Castle  or  a  trolley-car  to 
Stonehenge.  Everywhere  in  Great  Britain  one 
feels  the  modern  thrusting  through  the  rich  soil 
and  surface  cake  of  what  is  older  than  the  life  of 
man.  "The  Popular  Magazine"  and  "The  Top 
Notch"  are  widely  read  in  Ireland.  In  the  little 
Hampshire  village  of  Emsworth  bright,  new 

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INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

jerry-built  bungalows  rise  close  to  the  huddle  of 
centuries-old  fishermen's  cottages,  and  motor- 
cars flash  past  thatched  roofs  under  the  great 
spire  of  Chichester  and  come  to  rest  in  a  ren- 
ovated moss-grown  inn.  Peasants  touch  their 
hats  as  you  pass  and  call  you  "sir,"  and  the  girl 
conductor  of  the  omnibus  is  sometimes  as  curt 
and  scornful  as  a  Chicago  expressman.  In  the 
Devon  hamlet  of  Lewdown  the  farm  women  with 
whom  we  lived  continue  to  make  clotted  cream  as 
their  likes  made  it  when  John  Ridd  climbed  to  his 
courting,  but  eagerly  borrow  my  London  paper 
every  evening  after  the  chores  are  done.  The 
church  is  still  firmly  established,  but  the  congre- 
gation waits  for  the  afternoon  service,  and  the 
afternoon  service  is  held  in  the  cinema  house. 
The  king  is  a  very  gallant  and  modest  gentleman, 
but  he  does  not  possess  the  power  of  Arthar  Hen- 
derson or  the  influence  of  H.  W.  Massingham. 
Still  stands  the  House  of  Lords,  but  the  lords  of 
power  are  Devonport,  Rhondda,  and  Northcliff  e, 
business  lords.  The  telephone  and  tram-car 
stretch  their  wires  through  lanes  where  the 
cavaliers  rode,  and  there  is  an  excellent  tele- 
graph service  in  the  village  in  which  Baring 

314 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

Gould  is  writing  the  legends  of  his  country- 
side. 

The  new-comers  are  not  taking  the  Kingdom 
by  violence.  They  do  not  tear  down  the  old. 
No,  they  take  the  heart  out  of  it,  and  let  it  wither 
like  a  plant  stung  by  the  frost.  The  wreckers 
will  never  march  through  England  armed  with 
condemnation  writs  and  blasting-powder.  But 
gradually  the  light  railways  spread  their  threads, 
while  "The  Daily  Mail"  scatters  its  modernism  to 
millions.  It  is  possible  by  careful  selection  to 
convince  oneself  that  the  former  things  have  not 
passed  away.  It  is  true  that  they  linger,  but 
new  forces  are  in  command,  and  England  of  the 
poets  is  an  old-age  pensioner  in  the  house  of  her 
daughters  of  the  British  commonwealth.  They 
make  war  in  vain  who  fight  against  these  things. 
Raw  energy  is  in  the  saddle,  and  the  galled  jade 
must  gallop  to  new  spurs. 

THE  NEW  WAY 

Liberalism  has  ceased  to  be  a  political  theory 
and  has  become  a  program  of  reconstruction, 
planning  reform  by  intensive  intellectual  effort. 
After  the  Napoleonic  wars  a  period  of  deadness 

315 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

set  in,  and  gradually  middle-class  liberalism,  bar- 
ren of  ideas,  assumed  control.  It  did  not  come 
to  grips  with  its  world,  because  it  did  not  have  the 
proper  method.  But  in  recent  years  the  way  to 
study  Human  society  has  been  discovered.  A 
group  of  university  men  began  to  put  their 
thought  on  the  organization  of  human  life.  The 
working-class  party  sprang  up.  There  has  never 
existed  so  wide  a  division  between  the  intellectuals 
and  the  workers  in  England  as  in  America.  The 
English  workers  have  never  swallowed  whole  the 
Marxian  analysis.  They  have  preferred  step  by 
step  reform  to  the  spreading  of  a  theory. 

As  the  result  of  much  patient  piece-meal  work, 
based  on  "the  accumulation  and  analysis  of  eco- 
nomic knowledge,"  a  whole  new  body  of  legisla- 
tion was  incorporated  into  English  life,  beginning 
with  the  year  1906.  That  process  continues. 
The  principles  of  this  reconstruction  are  derived 
from  the  conception  that  a  community  must  work 
hard  with  its  mind  in  order  to  organize  a  good  so- 
ciety. Untrammeled  by  dogma,  the  practical 
English  intelligence,  both  of  the  working-class 
brain  and  of  the  intellectuals,  has  set  about  re- 
shaping its  institutions  of  property  and  state. 

816 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

The  Fabian  Society  and  "The  Round  Table" 
group  have  aided  in  the  work  of  collecting  facts 
and  sharpening  the  analysis.  There  have  been 
brilliant  scouts  like  Wells  and  Shaw.  But  back 
of  them,  and  providing  them  with  the  equipment 
for  their  sorties,  are  the  hard  workers  with  a 
genius  for  taking  pains,  like  the  Webbs,  Seebohm 
Rowntree,  and  Bruno  Lasker.  "The  develop- 
ment of  more  delicate  logical  methods  and  the 
accumulation  of  recorded  observations  are  now 
making  deliberate  thought  about  mankind  less  in- 
exact and  misleading  than  at  any  other  point  in 
history." 

Lately,  many  persons  have  been  thinking  with 
the  lash  on  them.  How  to  stop  the  Zeppelins, 
make  shells,  and  overcome  the  damage  of  war — 
these  questions  are  being  dealt  with  at  high 
speed.  The  community  is  becoming  aware  of 
itself;  it  is  devising  an  imperial  economy,  which 
correlates  industry  to  national  needs  and  includes 
the  family  budget  in  its  process  of  thought.  The 
easy  generalizations  of  political  exiles  and  closet- 
philosophers  have  been  displaced  by  fact-inves- 
tigations and  analysis  from  the  records.  Laissez- 
faire,  the  economic  man,  economic  determinism, 

817 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

and  the  other  substitutes  for  hard  work,  no  longer 
content  the  community  which  wishes  to  find  itself. 
Patiently  and  gropingly,  a  synthesis  for  the  new 
society  is  being  formed. 

Almost  unobserved,  a  literature  is  forming 
around  the  social  movement.  It  is  a  literature 
where  the  pressure  of  thought  has  been  so  intense 
and  controlled  that  it  has  wrought  for  itself  a 
special  style.  I  feel  sure  that  if  Professor  Saints- 
bury  were  to  extend  his  anthology  of  "English 
Prose  Rythms,"  he  would  include  paragraphs 
from  Bertrand  Russell,  A.  E.,  Edward  Carpen- 
ter, Lowes  Dickinson,  Havelock  Ellis,  and  Gra- 
ham Wallas.  They  carry  a  tone  and  accent,  giv- 
ing pleasure  to  the  inward  ear.  These  men  write 
a  clear  and  precise  English,  which  travels  easily 
and  without  fatigue,  and  often  rises  to  beauty  on 
its  own  momentum  of  thought.  They  seem  to 
have  lifted  the  technic  of  style  to  a  new  level; 
perhaps  no  higher  than  that  of  several  earlier 
periods,  but  different.  They  have  introduced  a 
fresh  cadence  into  the  prose  music  of  the  last  four 
centuries.  There  is  an  absence  of  premeditated 
eloquence,  of  overstatement,  of  the  wind  of  words. 
There  has  come  a  realization  that  the  limit  of  lan- 

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SOCIAL  STUDIES 

guage  in  one  direction  had  been  reached  with 
"multitudinous  seas"  and  "purple  riot,"  and  that 
the  prose  writers  who  pushed  along  that  track  of 
the  poets  reached  a  point  of  strain  in  De  Quincey 
and  Landor  beyond  which  laughter  lurked.  The 
inevitable  reaction  gave  us  the  clear,  cold  drear- 
iness of  Herbert  Spencer  and  the  suppression 
and  aridity  of  Arnold. 

But  these  modern  prose  writers,  interpreting 
the  new  social  order,  have  taken  a  fresh  trail. 
And  I  do  not  doubt  they  have  abolished  the 
purple  patch  as  effectually  as  they  have  avoided 
the  anemia  of  thwarted  impulse.  Their  meaning 
is  more  exactly  expressed  than  in  the  pages  of 
men  who  used  loosely  and  cheaply  "God," 
"nature,"  "happiness,"  and  "society."  But  the 
pains  of  a  scientific  precision  have  not  silenced 
the  music.  There  is  none  of  the  jumbled  ter- 
minology of  our  troubled  "sociologists"  and  psy- 
chologists. These  men  have  lifted  their  scholar- 
ship into  simplicity.  It  is  perhaps  only  an 
interesting  chance  that  two  of  them  are  math- 
ematicians, but  it  is  profoundly  significant  that 
all  of  them  are  students  of  human  society,  not  in 
the  old  literary  way  of  projecting  Utopias,  but 

319 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

through  the  process  of  hard  thinking  on  the  facts 
of  life. 

"In  the  end  it  is  the  psychological  question  of 
fact  which  will  have  to  settle  the  ethical  question 
of  conduct." 

It  is  no  longer  enough  for  us  that  a  passage  in 
a  book  shall  be  "well  written,"  as  the  famous  and 
unintelligent  pages  of  Lecky  on  prostitution. 
Writing  that  concerns  itself  with  society,  if  it  is 
to  win  a  response  from  us,  must  be  grounded  on 
observation  of  the  facts.  It  must  bring  a  sci- 
entific method  to  bear  on  "the  vast  and  constantly 
growing  accumulation  of  recorded  observations." 
Surely  in  these  choice  writers  of  the  reconstruc- 
tion we  have  that  quality  which  the  democracy,  if 
it  is  wise,  will  cherish.  We  have  that  natural 
aristocracy,  that  sovereignty  of  the  best,  which 
alone  is  able  to  set  a  standard  for  the  mass-peo- 
ple. 

THE  NEW  AMERICANISM 

Around  20,000,000  happy  firesides  the  fathers  of 
America  will  gather  this  night  with  their  unbroken 
family  circle,  with  their  children  upon  their  knees  and 
their  wives  by  their  side,  happy  and  prosperous.  Con- 
trast this  with  the  fathers,  husbands  and  brothers  of 

320 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

the  Old  World,  dying  in  the  ditches.  .  .  .  Who  is  it 
that  would  have  our  President  exchange  with  the  blood- 
bespattered  monarchs  of  the  Old  World?  .  .  .  He  is 
the  world  teacher,  his  class  is  made  up  of  kings,  kaisers, 
czars,  princes,  and  potentates. — Senator  Ottie  James, 
Permanent  Chairman  of  the  Democratic  National  Con- 
vention, 

With  the  causes  and  the  objects  of  this  war  we  are 
not  concerned. — Woodrow  Wilson,  President  of  the 
United  States. 

The  superb  assurance  of  Captain  Hans  Rose, 
coupled  with  his  inimitable  ability,  shown  -when  he 
brought  the  U-5S  into  Newport,  Rhode  Island,  paid 
and  received  visits  of  courtesy,  handed  to  an  American 
newspaper  man  a  letter  for  Ambassador  von  Berns- 
torff,  dived  and  was  away  on  a  mission  of  destruction 
within  three  hours,  carries  with  it  a  wholesome  savor 
of  knightly  conduct  that  goes  home  to  the  moral  center 
of  every  American. — "The  Evening  Gazette"  Cedar 
Rapids,  Iowa. 

I  write  this  article  as  the  result  of  conver- 
sations and  correspondence  with  a  wide  group  of 
Americans  and  English  and  French,  made  up  of 
politicians,  economists,  historians,  psychologists, 
and  literary  men.  I  find  in  thoughtful  men 
to-day  both  in  America  and  Europe  a  challenge 
of  certain  tendencies  in  our  national  thought.  I 

321 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

believe  that  challenge  to  be  well  grounded.  A 
great  mass  of  talk  and  letters  suddenly  came  to 
focus  one  day  in  what  one  man,  a  distinguished 
scholar,  expressed  to  me.  So  in  what  follows  I 
have  taken  the  lines  and  phrases  of  his  thought. 
But  what  he  stated  is  only  the  clear  expression 
of  what  many  are  saying  and  feeling. 

We  have  failed  to  teach  our  true  American 
tradition  to  new-comers,  but  certain  of  our 
newspapers  and  of  our  popular  voices  have  been 
busy  in  creating  a  legend  of  Americanism  which 
contains  an  element  of  falsity.  We  have  dis- 
played a  self-complacency  in  our  proclamation 
of  freedom,  a  readiness  to  assume  that  it  was  our 
monopoly,  and  that  no  other  nation  understood 
so  fully  what  it  meant  or  had  done  such  service 
for  it.  This  has  led  to  a  lack  of  sympathy  with 
other  nations  that  have  achieved  freedom  or  are 
aspiring  after  it  or  are  helping  to  strengthen  and 
extend  it.  This  attitude  has  been  reflected  in 
our  school  histories.  The  establishment  of  Amer- 
ican independence  is  represented  in  these  school- 
books,  in  newspaper  writing,  in  popular  speeches, 
as  a  protest  against  tyranny,  a  breaking-away 
from  Old- World  chains.  But  this  is  not  how 

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SOCIAL  STUDIES 

scientific  historians  of  the  modern  school  see  that 
event.  Despite  her  grave  mistakes  then,  Eng- 
land had  endowed  our  States,  as  she  has  endowed 
every  settlement  of  European  stock  which  she 
has  planted,  with  the  institutions  of  self-govern- 
ment, from  which  sprang  our  desire  for  a  wider 
freedom.  Despite  the  many  mistakes  she  has 
made  since,  she  has  carried  freedom  and  justice 
to  new  populations,  and  has  been  an  unwearied 
breeder  of  free  nations.  Our  popular  concep- 
tion of  our  Revolution,  our  self-complacency  in 
our  proclamation  of  freedom  as  an  American 
monopoly,  have  kept  us  out  of  an  organic  rela- 
tion with  the  whole  world  of  civilization.  We 
have  failed  in  recent  years  to  feel  that  this  world 
is  one,  and  the  cause  of  freedom  a  single  cause, 
to  whose  fortunes  no  free  society  can  be  indif- 
ferent or  neutral.  That  breach  is  a  tragedy,  per- 
haps one  of  the  greatest  tragedies  in  history.  It 
has  been  a  bad  thing  for  civilization,  because  it 
has  weakened  the  defense  of  freedom  by  alienat- 
ing its  strongest  advocates  from  one  another,  and 
persuading  one  of  them  to  stand  aloof  from  its 
struggles.  It  has  been  a  bad  thing  for  America, 
by  leading  her  to  imagine  that  she  is  not  as  other 

323 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

nations  are,  and  that  the  working  out  of  the  great 
issues  of  civilization  in  Europe  had  no  interest 
for  her. 

This  falsity  in  the  popular  view  of  the  Euro- 
pean situation  has  cut  us  off  from  sympathy  with 
other  peoples  who  have  loved  freedom  not  less 
sincerely.  We  have  continually  misunderstood 
England,  the  tyrant  state  which  America  had 
defied.  We  have  had  the  curious  spectacle  of  a 
friendship  between  the  two  nations  that  was  al- 
most wholly  one-sided.  England  has  repeatedly 
helped  and  supported  us ;  we  have  not  really  be- 
lieved that  England  stood,  in  the  main,  for  free- 
dom and  justice.  And  what  is  true  of  our  atti- 
tude toward  England  is  true  in  varying  degree 
of  our  attitude  toward  the  other  "old  strugglers" 
of  Europe.  We  have  not  believed  it  was  our 
duty  to  give  support  to  Belgium,  to  the  French, 
or  to  the  Italians  in  the  struggle  for  the  enlarge- 
ment of  liberty. 

When  the  autocrats  of  the  Holy  Alliance  were, 
as  Canning  put  it,  "aspiring  to  bind  Europe  in 
chains,"  they  crushed  the  movement  toward  free- 
dom in  Italy  and  Spain,  and  then  purposed  to 
crush  it  also  in  Spanish  America.  Canning,  in 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

the  name  of  Great  Britain,  defied  them,  recog- 
nized the  independence  of  the  Spanish  colonies, 
and  made  it  plain  that  the  British  fleet  would  re- 
sist any  attempt  to  send  armies  to  South  Amer- 
ica. He  approached  our  Government  with  the 
suggestion  that  the  United  States  should  take 
their  stand  by  the  side  of  Great  Britain.  Presi- 
dent Monroe's  message  was  the  result.  That 
was  the  promise  that  America  was  going  to  make 
freedom  her  concern  even  outside  of  her  own 
bounds.  It  was  not  a  proclamation  of  suzer- 
ainty over  the  double  continent.  Monroe's  mes- 
sage and  the  fear  of  the  British  fleet  kept  Euro- 
pean armies  out  of  South  America.  It  is  the 
British  fleet  which  has  in  recent  years  saved  the 
Monroe  Doctrine  from  challenge.  But  our  pop- 
ular conception  has  turned  the  Monroe  Doctrine 
into  an  assertion  of  American  self-containedness 
and  indifference  to  Europe. 

Again,  in  the  Spanish- American  War  we  made 
the  cause  of  freedom  outside  our  bounds  our  own 
cause.  But  having  done  this,  we  came  to  regard 
it  as  only  an  American  question.  There  was 
nothing  which  the  Spaniards  did  in  Cuba  com- 
parable with  what  the  Germans  have  done  in  Bel- 

325 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

gium.  The  sinking  of  the  Maine  was  no  less 
capable  of  explanation  and  excuse  than  the  sink- 
ing of  the  Lusitarda.  There  was  no  tie  of  ob- 
ligation to  Cuba  more  primal  than  our  national 
signature  to  The  Hague  conventions.  The  Bel- 
gian outrages  were  as  much  our  concern  as  the 
Cuban  outrages. 

Loyalty  to  an  ideal  becomes  vulgarized  and 
tarnished  when  it  is  interpreted  in  a  self -regard- 
ing way.  It  is  not  freedom  that  our  people  have 
been  recently  worshiping,  but  only  the  brand  of 
it  called  American  freedom,  which  we  have  per- 
suaded ourselves  is  something  peculiar  and  dif- 
ferent in  kind  from  other  brands.  By  our  news- 
paper and  popular  conception  of  Americanism 
we  have  not  taught  our  new-comers  the  American 
tradition  of  Franklin,  Monroe,  Lincoln,  and  John 
Hay.  We  have  taught  them  to  despise  other 
lands,  to  regard  all  the  peoples  of  the  Old  World 
as  alike  reactionary  and  illiberal.  We  have 
failed  to  impart  an  understanding  of  the  labors 
for  the  expansion  of  liberty  which  have  been  un- 
dertaken by  other  peoples.  Many  of  our  people 
have  come  to  believe  that  since  American  freedom 
is  something  peculiar  or  esoteric,  it  has  few  or  no 

326 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

responsibilities  in  the  larger  world,  and  may 
rightly  become  self -regarding.  In  the  present 
war  it  appears  as  little  more  than  the  opportu- 
nity of  enlarging  material  prosperity.  The  ob- 
ligation of  sacrifice,  the  maintenance  of  other 
than  our  own  rights,  seem  the  wild  words  of 
idealists  like  Putnam  and  Morton  Prince,  and 
the  quixotic  acts  of  college  boys  like  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Norton  Ambulance.  An  ideal  of 
freedom  that  is  restricted  and  purely  self -regard- 
ing, however  eloquent  the  phrases  that  clothe  it, 
is  an  uninspiring  ideal.  It  is  not  astonishing 
that  many  of  our  citizens,  under  the  influence  of 
this  ideal,  have  concentrated  their  attention  on 
making  money  from  the  agonies  of  Europe.  It 
is  not  astonishing  that  some  elements  among  them 
have  found  greater  inspiration  in  the  exacting 
demands  of  the  ideals  of  other  nations.  Even 
the  German  ideal  demands  heroic  sacrifice.  A 
belief  in  liberty  so  self -regarding  as  ours  cozens 
itself  that  liberty  is  served  even  by  accepting  the 
Lusitania  crime,  passing  lightly  over  the  Belgian, 
Lorraine,  and  Armenian  horrors,  and  submitting 
to  the  outrages  of  U-53. 

Our  recent  immigrants  are  led  to  believe  that 
327 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

in  coming  to  America  they  are  coming  to  the  only 
real  home  of  liberty,  that  they  have  no  responsi- 
bility for  the  championing  of  justice  elsewhere, 
and  that  they  have  no  concern  with  the  dog- 
fights of  the  "effete  monarchies"  and  enemies  of 
liberty  left  in  Europe.  Some  of  these  new-com- 
ers are  ready  to  adopt  that  view  because  they 
come  from  lands  where  tyranny  is  still  in  com- 
mand. Justice  and  freedom  are  not  made  to  ap- 
pear to  them  one  supreme  cause  wherever  they 
are  on  trial,  worthy  of  sacrifice ;  but  they  appear 
as  achievements  of  our  own,  peculiar  to  us,  re- 
warded with  material  advantages.  With  them 
our  historic  tradition  is  not  an  inheritance. 
With  many  of  them  it  is  not  even  an  acquisition. 
The  terms  of  the  life  which  created  our  tradition 
were  not  terms  of  ease  and  aloofness.  The  life 
was  a  struggle  with  pioneer  primitive  conditions, 
against  forces  of  nature,  hostile  bands  of  Indians, 
foreign  troops,  and  traitorous  men  among  us. 
But  our  recent  immigrants  have  come  to  us  to 
escape  from  severe  conditions,  and  their  cry  is,  in 
the  words  of  Mary  Antin,  "What  has  America 
given  us?"  Corruption  in  politics  and  business, 

328 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

cosmopolitanism  in  feeling,  luxury,  waste,  com- 
mercialism— all  these  are  increasingly  the  prod- 
ucts of  the  recent  years.  Instead  of  being  the 
struggling  arena  for  a  great  experiment  in  de- 
mocracy, we  are  becoming  the  grab-bag  for  all 
that  is  predatory  in  human  nature.  With  the 
change  in  blood  has  come  a  change  in  national 
character.  We  are  shaking  off  the  old  beliefs, 
the  tradition  of  sacrifice  and  discipline  and  re- 
sponsibility. 

In  a  smaller  matter  than  the  present  World 
War  we  could  comfort  ourselves  with  the  fail- 
ures of  other  nations.  We  have  high  precedent 
for  our  abstention  from  crisis.  But  this  is  a  mo- 
ment when  France  and  England  are  well  served 
by  their  tradition  of  freedom  and  justice,  and 
when  our  modern  Americanism  lends  itself  to  an 
easy  distortion.  It  is  a  moment  when  one  is 
proud  to  be  a  Frenchman  or  an  Englishman,  and 
when  we,  for  all  our  prosperity,  do  not  feel  very 
proud  to  be  American.  There  have  been  mo- 
ments in  the  past  when  the  prides  would  have 
been  reversed;  but  this  is  not  one  of  them,  and 
this  is  the  greatest  moment  of  history. 

329 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

NATIONALITY 

In  a  Frenchman  nationality  can  be  set  aflame 
by  a  touch.  He  has  consciously  thought  about 
it.  This  is  because  he  and  his  fellows  as  a  na- 
tion have  been  invaded  again  and  again,  and  as 
a  nation  have  marched  out  across  Europe.  Al- 
most every  half -century  France  has  gone  for- 
ward to  the  frontier,  following  or  facing  some  im- 
perialist, to  bleed  its  life  away.  So  a  French- 
man kindles  at  thought  of  his  nation,  and 
that  thought  is  a  love  for  the  soil  of  his  patrie, 
for  the  house  where  he  was  born,  and  for  the 
sunlight  and  the  equality  of  his  beautiful  coun- 
try. 

The  nationality  of  a  German  is  a  touchy  affair. 
It  was  only  a  few  years  ago  that  his  country  was 
a  handful  of  petty  states.  Now  suddenly  a  big, 
powerful,  deific  engine,  the  state,  has  somehow 
gathered  him  in  with  the  weak  kingdoms,  and  he 
is  half  afraid  that  the  concern  will  slip  away  in 
the  night,  and  leave  him  again  with  his  dreams 
and  his  music,  and  his  empire  broken  back  into 
small  bits.  He  is  still  in  the  pain  of  a  swift 
process. 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

The  myth  of  nationality  is  a  profound  and  nec- 
essary truth,  as  well-grounded  as  any  that  gov- 
erns human  nature.  It  is  blind  and  brutal  and 
righteous.  It  moves  to  aggression,  or  lives  peace- 
ably at  home.  It  builds  big  guns  or  is  pastoral. 
It  is  merely  the  collective  expression  of  human 
nature  in  the  particular  group  which  circum- 
stance and  natural  liking  have  created.  It  was 
formed  as  much  by  chance  as  the  family — acci- 
dent, propinquity,  commercial  considerations. 
Once  formed,  it  is  as  natural  as  the  family. 
Tagore  says  that  "a  new  age  is  imminent,  when 
the  ideal  of  nationalism  will  be  discarded." 

But  a  greater  than  Tagore  has  said: 

What  muddles  the  moderns  about  the  institution  of 
the  family  is  what  muddles  them  also  about  National- 
ism: it  is  this  double  aspect  of  unity  and  multiplicity. 
The  principle  of  one  house,  one  vote,  seems  to  them  a 
crumbling  dream.  So  some  of  them  cannot  believe  in 
the  corporate  mystery  of  patriotism,  though  it  sets 
the  world  on  fire  before  their  very  eyes.  They  ask 
what  a  nation  is;  and  can  only  be  shown  dissolving 
views  and  visions.  They  see  a  mob  tossing  in  a  market- 
place; and  then  a  king  sitting  alone  upon  a  throne  of 
marble;  and  then  only  innumerable  interiors,  like  cells 
of  a  bee-hive,  with  each  man  eating  his  own  breakfast 

331 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

and  minding  his  own  business;  and  then,  again,  only 
smoke  and  sky,  and  a  painted  rag  upon  a  pole  that 
drives  out  upon  the  driving  wind.  And  all  these  are 
one  thing. 

That  nationality  does,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  pen- 
etrate to  deeper  sources  of  instinctive  life  than 
other  forms  of  association,  such  as  religion  and 
socialism,  is  proved  by  the  alinements  of  the 
present  war,  where  comrade  fights  comrade,  and 
Catholic  fights  Catholic.  Zimmern  gives  the 
reason : 

Why  should  our  citizenship  take  precedence  of  our 
trade  unionism  or  our  business  obligations?  Aristotle 
replies,  and  in  spite  of  recent  critics  I  think  the  reply 
still  holds  good:  because,  but  for  the  existence  of  the 
State  and  the  reign  of  law  maintained  by  it,  none  of 
these  associations  could  have  been  formed  or  be  main- 
tained. 

Nationality  lies  very  deeply  buried  in  the  sub- 
consciousness  of  an  Englishman.  It  required  a 
world  war  to  dig  it  out.  Empire  talk  never  ex- 
isted with  the  English  till  it  came  to  the  surface 
with  Burke,  and  received  from  him  a  certain 
shaping  and  impetus.  It  dozed  again  till  Dis- 

332 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

raeli  gave  it  a  shove,  and  it  sped  along  rather 
briskly  in  the  latter  days  of  Victoria  and  her  Sec- 
ond Jubilee.  But  it  never  took  strong  hold  of 
the  general  imagination,  and  there  have  been  few 
jingo  hysterias  breaking  about  the  idea  of  em- 
pire. There  is  of  course  an  inner  group  of  men, 
highly  aware  of  empire  as  an  affair  of  the  state, 
and  a  much  wider  group  of  upper-class  families 
whose  sons  find  their  career  in  being  governors, 
magistrates,  and  minor  officials.  The  Anglo- 
Indian,  for  instance,  is  a  rather  well-defined 
type.  The  young  men  have  to  go  somewhere. 
They  can't  go  into  trade.  They  are  well  ed- 
ucated, men  of  honor,  and,  often  enough,  with 
a  touch  of  vitality  and  adventure.  Accordingly 
many  of  them  trek  off  to  the  ends  of  the  earth 
and  enter  public  service  in  a  crown  colony.  Such 
men  were  Cromer,  Milner,  and  Curzon. 

A  few  of  them  go  farther  yet,  and  push  the 
imperial  map  into  the  jungle,  or  plant  the  flag  in 
a  floe.  Selous  was  a  true  Englishman  of  this 
sort.  So  was  Scott.  The  same  breed  of  men 
are  the  sailors,  and  they  have  kept  his  Majesty's 
navy  up  to  specifications  for  three  hundred 
years.  That  is  nationality  for  them,  streaking 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

out  over  polar  ice,  splashing  through  swamps, 
and  rolling  through  the  seven  seas. 

But  these  men  are  a  tiny  fraction  of  the  com- 
munity,— "men  of  Biddeford  in  Devon," — and 
their  idea  of  England  as  a  good  place  to  see  once 
a  year  or  once  in  three  years  is  n't  the  national- 
ity of  the  mass.  The  nationality  of  the  mass  of 
people  lies  deep,  and  in  quiet  days  they  hardly 
know  they  have  it.  There  is  a  lot  of  silent  pride 
in  the  navy  and  sea-power,  and  the  "Britannia 
rule  the  waves"  line  probably  comes  as  near  to 
saying  something  as  a  popular  song  usually  does. 
But  of  a  dramatization  of  the  "Island-Queen" 
there  is  none  in  the  popular  mind.  The  uncon- 
scious pride  is  enormous.  You  feel  it  in  the  ab- 
ject loneliness  of  an  Englishman  off  British  soil. 
I  have  had  very  intimate  English  friends  in  New 
York,  and  there  was  always  a  kind  of  "lost" 
quality  about  their  personality.  They  were 
loyal  to  the  place  that  gave  them  bread,  but  they 
waited  for  the  return  with  a  long  and  touching 
patience.  It  was  my  fortune  to  see  them  re- 
turned, and  catch  the  sigh  of  relief  which  the  first 
years  of  the  home-coming  called  out.  Every 
simple  little  thing  seemed  good  to  these  men,  and 

384 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

they  would  point  out  to  me  the  wide  commons  of 
Wimbledon  and  the  small,  friendly  locomotives 
of  the  suburban  railway.  An  Englishman  has  to 
suffer  before  he  knows  he  has  a  country. 

It  is  suffering  which  the  war  has  brought,  the 
sense  that  something  precious  and  intimate  is  im- 
periled. The  Englishman  likes  the  customs  of 
his  country  and  his  own  way  of  carrying  on. 
Veiy  slowly  he  learned  that  something  was  going 
to  intrude  and  destroy  that  private  wilfulness, 
that  right  of  the  individual  man  not  only  to  his 
life,  which  is  a  little  thing,  but  to  his  own  peculiar 
way  of  living  it,  which  is  an  important  thing. 
His  sense  of  possession  of  individual  liberty  is 
stronger  than  his  property  sense.  Gradually  the 
impression  came  upon  him  that  there  was  a  hub- 
bub across  the  channel,  and  that  the  noise  was 
growing  louder,  that  if  he  didn't  do  something 
there  would  be  no  end  to  it.  His  peace  and  quiet 
would  be  gone,  and  he  would  have  to  live  by  some 
one  else's  rules.  As  a  young  Englishwoman 
said  to  me:  "We  don't  want  strangers  to  step 
in  and  impose  on  us  their  manner  of  life.  We 
don't  want  to  be  speeded  up." 

But  still  we  have  failed  to  reach  the  basis  of 
335 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

the  instinctive  nationality  in  an  Englishman.  I 
think  it  lies  in  the  feelings  grouped  around  his 
locality  and  his  set  of  friends,  the  values  that  are 
closely  familiar.  One  hears  a  man  from  Ber- 
nardsville,  New  Jersey,  boast  about  Niagara 
Falls  and  the  Rocky  Mountains  as  if  they  were 
landscape  features  of  his  back  yard ;  but  an  Eng- 
lishman, if  he  talks  at  all,  will  speak  of  the  fields 
he  has  hunted  across,  and  the  pleasant  turn  of  the 
hills  that  are  in  sight  from  his  windows. 

I  was  glad  to  get  it  on  good  authority  that  I 
was  right  about  this  local  patriotism.  Captain 
[Basil  Williams  has  made  a  careful  study  of  the 
organization  of  the  British  army.  It  is  the  func- 
tion of  his  department  to  do  so.  He  told  me  the 
nature  of  the  appeal  by  which  the  millions  of  men 
were  recruited.  It  was  n't  a  vague,  noisy  crusade 
of  advertising  posters  and  general  patriotism. 
It  was  directly  aimed  at  where  the  men  lived  and 
their  feeling  of  comradeship.  The  regiments 
were  recruited  by  counties.  (A  few  regiments 
came  from  more  than  one  county.)  The  unit 
of  recruiting  is  the  battalion  of  one  thousand 
men.  In  the  original  standing  army,  and  in  the 
new  armies,  the  basis  of  the  system  is  the  regi- 

836 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

mental  local  idea.  Devonshire  means  something 
to  a  Lewdown  man  that  Columbia  County,  New 
York,  does  not  mean  to  a  Hudson  man.  The 
Devon  man  and  his  people  have  shot  rabbits  and 
ruled  the  sea  from  that  village  in  that  county 
for  several  centuries. 

When  the  war  began  and  large  numbers  of 
recruits  poured  in,  the  old  regimental  system  was 
maintained,  and  every  new  battalion  was  affil- 
iated to  some  old  regiment.  The  first  new  units 
were  the  special  reserves,  a  battalion  or  two  for 
each  regiment,  corresponding  to  the  old  militia. 
Then  there  came  battalions  of  territorials,  cor- 
responding to  the  old  volunteers.  These  terri- 
torials would  be  chosen  from  the  smaller  country 
districts.  Then  followed  the  service  battalions. 

It  was  difficult  at  first  to  obtain  equipment 
and  housing.  So  municipalities  organized  bat- 
talions in  their  own  locality,  and  handed  them 
over  when  the  army  was  ready  for  them.  Men 
said  they  would  like  to  go  with  their  neighbors 
and  pals.  Clerks,  sportsmen,  foot-ball  players, 
men  with  the  same  interest  in  life,  chummed  to- 
gether. War  was  a  strange,  new  job,  leaving 
the  individual  man  lonely,  and  he  wished  to  face 

337 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

it  with  friends.  These  "pal"  battalions  were 
still  attached  to  the  original  regiment. 

In  both  the  service  and  pals  battalions  Kitch- 
ener wished  reserves.  So  each  battalion  added 
to  its  one  thousand  men  five  hundred  more  men, 
making  a  reserve  battalion.  Thus  there  resulted 
a  reserve  battalion  of  service  battalions,  and  a 
reserve  battalion  of  pals  battalions. 

There  is  no  unit  of  numbers  for  a  regiment, 
which  can  have  two  thousand  men  or  twenty  thou- 
sand. One  regiment  has  twenty-six  battalions, 
but  the  expanding  numbers  are  glued  together 
by  the  comradeship  of  long  association  in  the 
pursuits  of  peace  and  by  the  sense  of  locality. 

The  first  two  armies,  Kl  and  K2,  were  new 
service  battalions  from  every  regiment  of  the 
British  army.  The  old  army  was  thus  dupli- 
cated by  the  first  two  new  armies.  The  third 
new  army,  K3,  was  raised  where  recruiting  was 
best,  largely  in  the  northern  and  western  por- 
tions. K4  and  K5  were  made  up  of  pals  battal- 
ions. Of  course  all  the  other  arms  of  service, 
medical  staff,  engineers,  artillery,  were  raised 
locally,  and  were  represented  in  these  units. 
And  this  appeal  to  local  patriotism  has  been  the 

SB8 


SOCIAL  STUDIES 

method  of  increasing  an  army  of  five  hundred 
thousand  to  five  million. 

Every  regiment  has  ancient  rights  and  priv- 
ileges and  points  of  local  pride.  The  Honour- 
able Artillery  Company  has  the  right  to  march 
through  London  with  fixed  bayonets,  and  the 
men  exercise  the  right.  At  the  entrance  of  the 
city  they  halt,  unbuckle  the  bayonet,  and  thrust 
it  into  place.  This  ancestral  quality  to  an  army 
unit  gives  an  esprit  de  corps  that  the  men  inherit, 
and  a  tradition  which  touches  them  to  quickened 
service.  It  is  a  survival  of  the  old  linked  bat- 
talion system,  which  provided  that  there  should 
be  two  regular  battalions,  one  normally  abroad, 
and  one  in  England.  Overseas  service  and 
peace  had  combined  to  create  the  system.  It 
gave  an  expeditionary  force  to  guard  India  and 
South  Africa.  The  old  feeling  was  entirely 
regimental.  Lately  there  has  been  an  extension 
of  the  scale  of  feeling  corresponding  to  the  vast 
area  of  the  war  itself,  and  the  division  has  become 
more  important  than  ever  before,  and  develops 
a  self -consciousness  of  its  own.  This  extension 
of  feeling  and  organization  keeps  step  with  the 
new  organized  state,  which  is  replacing  the 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

tiny  village  republics  of  local  self-government. 
But  local  pride  is  still  the  tap-root  of  English 
nationality,  and  I  shall  not  forget  the  inhabitants 
of  Stratford  as  they  gathered  around  the  public 
notices  that  recorded  the  performances  of  the 
"Warwickshires."  In  the  early  days  of  the  war 
the  German  chanted  "Deutschland,"  but  the 
Tommy  sang  of  Leicester  Square.  Just  now 
"Blighty"  is  the  word.  Soon  it  will  be  some 
other  phrase,  but  always  it  will  tell  of  a  little 
place,  a  city  street  or  a  country  lane. 


340 


CHAPTER  VI 

LLOYD-GEORGE 

I  HAVE  recently  come  from  a  long  talk  with 
Mr.  Lloyd-George.  What  he  convinced  me  of 
was  that  he  understands  and  cares  for  our  coun- 
try. Frankly,  I  had  doubted  this.  I  was  left 
subdued  by  his  militant  interview  on  "Hands 
Off,"  which  was  harsh  and  necessary,  but  which 
did  not  bind  Downing  Street,  London,  to  First 
Avenue,  Cedar  Rapids,  Iowa.  For  two  years  I 
had  wished  that  an  English  statesman  would  lift 
clear  of  his  business  with  the  enemy  and  give  a 
word  for  neutral  public  opinion.  Lloyd-George 
talked  and  listened  for  an  hour  and  three  quar- 
ters on  the  one  subject  of  the  middle  West  of 
America.  He  understands  the  people.  He 
knows  that  the  public  policy  of  the  nation  is  de- 
termined there.  He  knows  that  our  democratic 
experiment  is  being  decided  by  the  prairie  States. 
He  quoted  a  remark  of  Henry  Ford  not  with 
amusement  or  scorn,  but  as  significant.  By  that 

341 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

he  revealed  that  he  knows  more  about  the  real 
America  than  half  the  editors  of  Eastern  news- 
papers. 

He  understands  America  with  the  same  sym- 
pathy which  Lincoln  showed  for  the  Lancashire 
cotton  operatives  in  his  famous  letter  to  them. 
Lloyd-George  has  the  same  desire  for  a  frank 
presentation  of  facts  that  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
revealed  in  his  appeals  to  the  British  public  in  the 
industrial  cities.  What  he  wishes  is  that  our 
people  should  hold  the  same  sympathy  with  the 
struggle  of  the  European  democracies  that  the 
working-classes  of  England  learned  to  feel  for 
our  Civil  War  struggle,  after  Lincoln  and 
Beecher  had  made  clear  to  them  that  we  were 
fighting  for  human  liberty.  Mr.  Lloyd-George 
does  not  regard  the  war  as  a  dog-fight  or  as  a 
sporting  proposition.  He  sees  it  as  an  incalcu- 
lable tragedy.  With  his  Celtic  imagination  he 
lives  in  a  profound  sense  of  the  pity  and  the  waste 
of  it.  He  has  as  little  hate  and  bitterness  as  the 
soldiers  of  England  and  France  with  whom  I 
have  lived  at  the  front. 

He  has  a  habit  of  informal  breakfast  at  a  sunny 
little  flat  about  ten  minutes  away  from  Downing 


LLOYD-GEORGE 

Street.  Here  two  or  three  of  his  friends  meet 
him.  He  comes  in  well  rested,  and  decides  points 
of  policy  and  indulges  in  reminiscence,  amusing 
and  poetic.  And  all  his  talk  has  a  lightness  of 
touch.  The  guests  of  this  morning  were  Mr. 
Davies,  the  war  secretary;  Seebohm  Rowntree, 
the  manufacturer  and  social  worker,  whose  books 
on  the  study  of  poverty  are  as  well  known  in 
America  as  in  England;  and  H.  N.  Spalding. 
Mr.  Rowntree  and  Mr.  Spalding  are  conducting 
the  department  of  welfare  work  in  the  ministry 
of  munitions. 

"Are  you  giving  them  welfare?"  he  asked  Mr. 
Rowntree.  "Here,"  he  said,  turning  to  me,  "is 
the  greatest  attempt  ever  made  by  a  government 
to  surround  the  lives  of  the  workers  with  safe- 
guards for  their  safety  and  health  and  well- 
being." 

"What  Americans  and  English  need  more  than 
any  one  thing  else  is  a  smoking-room  acquaint- 
ance, where  they  exchange  their  views  informally 
and  get  to  know  the  man." 

It  is  this  smoking-room  intimacy  that  Mr. 
Lloyd-George  gives  to  all  whom  he  meets.  He 
is  not  afraid  of  being  himself.  He  is  as  daring 

343 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

in  his  comments  on  men  and  things  as  Mr.  Roose- 
velt, as  charming  as  the  late  William  James.  He 
is  used  to  being  loved.  The  lines  about  the  eyes 
reveal  a  man  who  works  his  purpose  by  geniality 
in  a  flow  of  fun  and  charm  and  sympathy.  The 
political  battles  of  twenty  years  have  left  less  im- 
pression on  his  spirit  than  the  victories  he  has 
won  as  peace-maker  and  harmonizer.  He  re- 
ferred to  two  editors  who  have  recently  been  at- 
tacking him.  He  said: 

"I  don't  mind  their  criticizing  me.  I  can  take 
blows  and  I  can  give  them.  But  they  are  mak- 
ing it  hard  for  us  to  get  together  after  the  war. 
We  don't  want  differences  when  we  come  to  the 
work  of  reconstruction." 

He  ends  a  talk  by  being  more  completely  the 
master  of  your  thought  than  you  are  yourself. 
He  states  it  clearly  and  beautifully,  and  reduces 
it  to  a  program  of  action. 

"To  understand  your  people  or  any  people," 
he  said,  "it  is  necessary  for  one  to  pass  inside  the 
temple." 

He  practises  what  Sainte-Beuve  preached, 
that  to  know  a  religion  you  must  be  a  worshiper 
inside  the  church.  So  week  by  week  Sainte- 

844 


LLOYD-GEORGE 

Beuve  became  a  mystic  and  a  pagan  and  an 
epicurean  as  he  served  up  the  soul  of  the  writer 
whom  he  was  interpreting.  This  is  the  high  gift 
which  Lloyd-George  possesses.  He  can  step  up 
to  the  very  altar  of  a  man's  most  secret  belief. 
This  is  the  gift  which  has  made  him  the  one 
Briton  who  is  perfectly  understood  in  France. 
He  spoke  only  a  couple  of  sentences  inside  the 
citadel  of  Verdun,  but  they  revealed  to  France 
that  he  knew  what  that  symbol  meant  to  them. 
For  in  his  best  moments  he  becomes  something 
other  than  the  grim  fighter,  and  the  adroit  pol- 
itician who  uses  all  the  tricks  of  the  game.  Sud- 
denly for  his  hearers,  and  unexpectedly  to  him- 
self, he  lifts  by  an  exquisite  imagination  to  the 
place  of  insight,  and  becomes  the  voice  of  ob- 
scure people,  and  understands  men  he  has  never 
met.  If  he  talks  with  a  slangy  person,  he  dis- 
charges himself  in  vivid,  staccato  phrases.  The 
nature  and  direction  of  his  rebound  are  deter- 
mined by  the  substance  that  he  encounters.  He 
was  born  to  react.  He  has  a  mind  that  kindles, 
and  a  style  that  rises  very  lightly  and  gracefully 
into  poetic  beauty.  There  has  been  no  such  pas- 
sage of  prose  produced  by  the  war  as  that  para- 

345 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

graph  of  his  on  "little  nations"  at  the  beginning 
of  the  fight. 

A  breezy  young  officer  of  the  flying  service 
once  told  me  the  shameful  secret  of  Lloyd- 
George.  It  was  that  the  war  minister  went 
around  obtaining  advice  from  experts,  that 
he  really  didn't  know  all  about  it  by  him- 
self. 

Earlier  in  the  war  a  prominent  banker  told  me 
that  the  then  chancellor  of  the  exchequer  was 
not  the  financial  authority  which  the  multitude 
thought  him,  that  he  held  consultations  with  lead- 
ing bankers,  that,  in  fact,  the  chancellor  had  con- 
sulted with  his  own  firm. 

Lloyd-George  is  the  leader  of  a  democracy  be- 
cause he  chums  with  experts,  and  swings  to  the 
currents  of  the  collective  will.  His  personality 
contains  the  virtues  and  the  perils  of  the  democ- 
racy itself.  For  it,  too,  may  some  day  establish 
a  bureaucracy  of  experts  that  could  be  the 
tightest  little  oligarchy  of  history,  and  it,  too, 
may  yet  swing  to  tides  that  are  ebbing.  It  is 
not  often  that  one  sees  a  community  incarnating 
itself  in  a  single  man.  But  the  British  democracy 
has  its  incarnation  in  Lloyd-George,  responsive 

346 


LLOYD-GEORGE 

to   vast   subconscious    forces,    and   turning   to 
specialists  for  aid  in  crises. 

He  faces  the  most  difficult  years  of  his  life, 
and  he  knows  it.  A  man  of  his  temperament  can 
conduct  a  great  war.  All  that  was  needed  was 
the  inspirational  quality  to  rouse  his  people,  the 
energy  to  set  them  at  work,  the  creative  imagina- 
tion to  see  the  war  in  its  extent,  its  duration,  its 
requirements.  None  of  these  tests  has  over- 
taxed his  powers,  for  they  all  lay  inside  the  area 
of  his  competence.  But  when  peace  comes, 
there  is  no  longer  one  straight  road  to  a  clear 
goal.  All  the  forces  of  reaction  will  coalesce. 
All  the  bad  counselors  will  make  a  cloud  of  wit- 
ness about  him.  All  the  paths  to  immediate 
power  will  lie  in  "playing  safe."  If  he  remains 
true  to  himself,  he  will  be  cursed  with  a  vehem- 
ence which  will  make  his  early  years  seem  a  sweet 
season  of  delight.  There  will  be  no  easy  vic- 
tories. All  will  be  turmoil  and  bitterness,  for 
we  are  at  the  beginning  of  the  greatest  fight  of 
the  ages — the  fight  of  the  democracies  inside 
themselves.  We  had  our  little  Lloyd-George  in 
America,  a  well  known  former  district-attorney 
of  New  York.  He  had  the  same  transcendent 

347 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

charm.  But  the  wrong  crowd  got  him,  not  by 
illicit  means.  They  won  him  on  his  social  side, 
the  quality  in  the  man  that  likes  people  and 
wishes  to  be  liked.  And  he  lost  his  sense  of  direc- 
tion. He  forgot  the  long,  hard  fight  he  was 
making  to  give  the  people  better  government. 

The  coming  years  of  Lloyd-George  will  be  de- 
termined by  the  kind  of  persons  who  surround 
him,  and  touch  that  sensitive,  quivering  mind  to 
action.  If  he  holds  fast  to  his  good  Welsh 
friends  and  to  men  like  Dr.  Clifford,  the  sturdy 
old  radical  warrior  of  nonconformity,  he  will  go 
simply  all  his  days,  and  continue  to  express  the 
living  element  of  his  people.  But  if  he  leans  to- 
ward the  men  of  power,  and  listens  to  those 
voices,  who  will  tell  him  of  the  kingdoms  of  this 
world,  and  who  will  promise  him  the  leadership 
of  a  reactionary  militaristic  Tory  party,  he  will 
lose  his  own  soul.  For  the  genius  of  the  man 
is  his  human  sympathy.  He  was  meant  to  be  a 
pathfinder  for  feet  too  tired  to  win  their  own 
way  into  the  open.  He  was  meant  to  think  him- 
self inside  the  mind  of  other  men  and  other  races. 

The  future  rests  with  him  as  with  no  other 
single  man  among  the  Western  peoples.  He 

348 


LLOYD-GEORGE  . 

will  face  a  world  no  longer  sharply  defined  into 
enemies,  allies,  and  neutrals,  but  a  world  where 
unguessed  tendencies  are  forming,  and  new  forces 
of  emancipation  are  fighting  for  recognition. 
We  have  this  to  go  on  for  hope :  Lloyd-George 
is  a  democrat  by  temperament  and  he  under- 
stands America. 


349 


VALE 

I  HAVE  sought  in  this  book  to  show  the  passing 
of  England, — Little  England,  Old  England, — 
the  crumbling  of  its  caste  system,  and  the  emer- 
gence of  the  England  of  John  Bull  and  Crom- 
well's soldiers  from  inarticulateness  into  power. 
And  a  yet  greater  thing  has  come — the  advent 
of  the  new  British  commonwealth.  Democratic 
control  is  being  established.  Labor  is  taking 
over  the  management  of  society.  The  women 
have  gone  out  to  win  their  world,  and  they  face 
a  bitter  struggle.  The  book  further  records  the 
wonderful  rebirth  of  nationality  in  Ireland.  It 
shows  the  machinery  of  joint  boards,  labor  ex- 
changes, workshop  councils,  imperial  conference 
and  franchise  extension,  by  which  the  transfor- 
mation will  be  worked.  It  tells  of  the  terms  of 
the  new  status  for  the  masses:  minimum  wage, 
limitation  of  hours,  choice  of  work,  control  inside 
the  industry.  Every  change  was  long  prepared 
for,  and  built  out  of  age-old  materials,  and  every 
change  is  made  by  compromise.  But  the  change 
carries  a  long  way,  because  the  momentum  is 

350 


VALE 

continuous  and  along  a  straight  line.  After  all, 
there  is  nothing  so  revolutionary  as  a  great 
tradition,  and  the  most  daring  reconstructors  are 
often  men  of  Tory  blood. 

So  I  have  tried  to  show  that  this  change  is  not 
a  hasty  chance  revolution,  but  the  natural  growth 
of  the  English  tradition.  The  little  vessel  that 
contained  that  tradition  has  been  broken,  but 
the  germinal  principle  has  been  scattered  rather 
widely  around  the  world.  I  think  that  the  book 
has  coherence,  because  the  theme  is  the  principle 
of  democratic  control.  It  is  this  principle  which 
is  shattering  the  caste  system,  reconstructing 
industry,  emancipating  women,  stirring  Ireland, 
seething  through  the  colonies,  making  England 
an  industrial  democracy,  and  transforming  the 
far-flung  empire  into  the  British  commonwealth. 

I  think  I  have  made  plain  that  the  program  of 
reconstruction  is  far  from  victorious  attainment. 
The  woman's  movement  bristles  with  unanswered 
questions.  Labor  has  failed  to  develop  its  ex- 
perts and  leaders,  and  when  it  does,  there  remains 
the  intricate  problem  of  democratic  control,  with 
a  set  of  experts  sitting  at  the  inner  wheels.  Free- 
dom is  a  hard  taskmaster.  And  deeper  yet  is  the 

851 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

problem  of  what  excellence  shall  be  made  of  the 
life  that  is  free. 

I  am  painfully  aware  of  failure  in  giving  my 
account.  I  have  had  to  use  only  three  years  of 
observation  and  five  months  of  writing  on  what 
ought  to  be  the  work  of  a  lifetime.  It  was  my 
wish  to  keep  the  record  free  from  praise  or  blame, 
and  to  let  it  tell  of  principles  and  tendencies  in  a 
community  of  great  variety.  But  to  my  own 
knowledge  I  have  often  failed  to  capture  what  is 
characteristic.  There  is  something  perdurable 
and  continuing  about  British  character.  No 
outer  violence  can  shake  the  citadel  of  the  individ- 
ual soul.  The  Briton  is  not  only  willing  to  die 
in  what  is  plainly  a  great  matter,  such  as  the 
freeing  of  Belgium,  he  is  willing  to  be  laughed 
at  and  to  be  put  into  prison  for  his  private  pet 
belief.  He  interrupts  public  meetings  and  de- 
poses leaders  if  the  speaker  or  the  representative 
outpaces  the  plain  man's  view  of  what  is  common 
sense.  There  is  no  British  type.  There  are 
many  types,  and  then,  in  between  the  composite, 
a  multitude  of  "infinitely  repellent  particles." 
That  individualism,  which  was  in  the  race  in 
Chaucer's  time,  and  again  found  record  in  Ben 

352 


VALE 

Jonson's  "The  Man  of  Humour,"  has  never  died, 
and  no  "collective  will"  or  state  control  will  ever 
rob  the  British  democracy  of  the  salt  and  tang  of 
its  variety,  the  loud  protest  of  its  protestants  and 
the  dissidence  of  its  dissent.  So  I  have  rendered 
official  stupidities  with  Ireland  and  the  Russian 
refugees.  But  the  final  truth  does  n't  rest  there. 
I  remember  a  talk  I  had  with  the  mayor  of  the 
largest  sea-coast  resort,  and  how  he  told  me  of 
returning  a  German  lad  to  his  home-country  after 
the  war  broke  out.  There  is  a  kindliness  in  the 
race.  Many  times  I  have  been  irritated  by  some- 
thing pig-headed  and  unconsciously  arrogant  in 
the  people,  the  quality  which  Havelock  Ellis 
describes  when  he  says,  "It  is  the  temper  of  a 
vigorous,  independent,  opinionated,  free-spoken, 
yet  sometimes  suspicious  people  among  whom 
every  individual  feels  in  himself  the  impulse  to 
rule."  It  springs  from  the  tradition  of  a  govern- 
ing class,  and  I  once  heard  one  of  the  most  famous 
men  in  Europe  tell  how  a  certain  English  noble- 
man always  made  him  feel:  "You  belong  to  a 
race  which  we  once  ruled.  Really,  we  ought  to 
be  ruling  you  now."  Then  there  comes  to  me  the 
intimate  talk  I  recently  had  with  a  librarian. 

353 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

"For  five  generations  my  family  has  been  in 
the  public  service,"  he  said,  "and  I  could  not  be 
happy  elsewhere.  I  receive  five  hundred  pounds 
a  year.  Recently,  a  business  house  offered  me 
nine  hundred  pounds,  with  the  promise  of  promo- 
tion. But  I  could  not  be  happy  in  other  work. 
We  do  not  want  money,  primarily,  so  long  as 
there  is  security,  and  enough  for  a  decent  living, 
and  a  pension,  perhaps,  at  the  end  of  it  all. 
What  can  money  offer  compared  with  public 
service?" 

That  is  the  secret  of  what  is  best  in  English 
life:  the  finest  men  in  public  service,  a  level  of 
conduct,  clean  administration  and  government. 
The  democracy  must  never  lower  that  standard. 

For  the  opportunity  of  meeting  the  moving 
spirits  of  the  reconstruction,  the  leaders  of  labor, 
welfare  work,  the  woman's  movement,  cabinet 
ministers,  writers,  officials,  I  owe  grateful  thanks 
to  H.  N.  Spalding,  Seebohm  Rowntree,  and 
Geoffrey  Butler.  They  were  tireless  in  effecting 
new  connections  for  me,  unaware  that  they  them- 
selves were  among  the  most  valuable  of  the  group 
whom  I  met.  And  from  the  many  talks  I  have 

354 


VALE 

seemed  to  verify  what  I  have  long  believed — that 
the  British  people  are  a  great  democratic  force 
in  the  world.  I  believe  that  in  accomplished 
reform  they  are  a  generation  ahead  of  the  United 
States,  and  that  they  see  more  clearly  than  we  the 
immense  responsibilities  which  the  principle  of 
democratic  control  creates. 

I  am  convinced  that  our  own  future  is  bound 
up  with  that  of  England,  that  together  with  Eng- 
land and  France  we  can  face  the  world  with 
security,  and  gradually  and  painfully  make  the 
democratic  principle  prevail.  I  am  convinced 
that,  divided,  both  England  and  America  will  be 
fatally  weakened,  and  that  the  future  will  be 
poorer  because  of  the  split.  What  is  needed  is 
interpretation  of  each  country  to  the  other,  lead- 
ing to  intellectual  understanding,  and  finally  to 
good-will.  For  that  common  understanding  I 
consider  it  of  importance  that  England  shall  con- 
quer a  certain  arrogance,  a  certain  unwillingness 
to  accept  us  as  grown-up,  and  that  she  shall  clear 
the  Irish  situation.  For  that  common  under- 
standing I  consider  it  of  equal  importance  that 
America  should  cease  her  policy  of  aloofness,  and 

355 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

overcome  the  self-complacency  which  believes  that 
our  country  alone  is  the  land  of  freedom  and 
justice  and  the  champion  of  democracy.  Then, 
together,  in  humility,  we  can  achieve  greatness, 
and  extend  the  principle  of  democratic  control. 


356 


APPENDIX 

IMPERIAL  PARLIAMENT 

In  an  outline  of  the  new  imperial  commonwealth  to  which 
Lord  Milner  has  given  his  approval  the  functions  of  the  im- 
perial parliament  are  suggested: 

The  first  of  these  is  the  support  and  maintenance  of  the  navy 
and  naval  establishments  and  fortifications  throughout  the  empire. 
The  second  is  the  control  of  the  expeditionary  army  and  the  main- 
tenance of  a  skeleton  military  establishment  for  the  empire  by  which 
the  national-service  militias  that  must  certainly  follow  this  war 
could  be  gunned,  mobilized,  and  directed  in  an  imperial  crisis. 
The  third  is  the  imperial  control  of  the  food-supply  and  of  the 
imperial  resources  of  raw  material.  The  fourth  is  imperial  transit, 
posts,  money,  standards,  ports,  and  seaways.  The  fifth  is  the  com- 
mon imperial  trade  policy.  The  sixth  is  the  supreme  direction  of 
education,  not  with  any  power  of  prohibition,  but  with  unlimited 
powers  of  endowment,  to  maintain  the  common  language  and  the 
supply  of  higher  education  universally  throughout  the  empire. 
The  seventh  is  the  maintenance  of  the  supreme  court  of  the  empire. 
The  eighth  is  the  control  of  foreign  policy  and  the  continuation 
of  the  imperial  trusteeship  over  the  non-represented  dependencies. 

THE  LABOR  COLLEGE 

The  modern  British  radical  is  a  man  in  command  of  the 
figures  in  his  industry.  His  wage  demand  is  not  a  blank 
check  drawn  against  the  full  productive  power  of  industry. 
It  is  an  exact  statement  of  the  amount  of  cash  which  the 
employer  has  just  put  into  his  own  pocket.  This  type  of 
worker  is  perfectly  willing  to  hold  a  conference  on  the  basis 
of  a  show-down  of  facts.  This  mental  clarity  is  not  true 

357 


APPENDIX 

of  the  mass  of  labor,  but  it  is  true  of  the  advanced  groups. 
Education  has  been  at  work  and  has  given  them  an  intel- 
lectual basis  for  their  desires.  Those  desires,  expressed  in 
the  form  of  demands,  are  less  noisy  and  more  deadly  than 
the  old  class-conscious  battle-cries.  There  is  an  atmosphere 
of  smokeless  powder  to  the  syndicalist  movement  in  the 
hands  of  the  miners,  railwaymen,  and  engineers. 

An  admirable  study  of  this  intellectual  ferment  in  the 
South  Wales  coal-fields  has  been  recently  made  by  a  spe- 
cial correspondent  of  "The  Tunes."  He  shows  how  the 
miners,  when  they  tackle  Lord  Rhondda  and  the  other 
barons  of  the  collieries,  figure  out  costs  from  statistics,  and 
challenge  their  management  to  a  joint  audit.  In  describ- 
ing the  careful  preparation  which  these  men  have  received, 
he  says: 

What  is  it  that  makes  South  Wales  the  industrial  storm-center 
of  Great  Britain  and  why  is  it  a  fruitful  ground  for  food  agita- 
tion and  peace  propaganda?  The  answer  is  simple.  Subject  a 
fiery  and  educated  people  to  a  soulless,  dehumanized,  commercial 
machine  for  the  extraction  of  gold  out  of  labor,  and  you  will 
inevitably  breed  a  seething  discontent  which  must  somewhere  find 
its  outlet. 

•Their  fieriness  is  sufficiently  known,  but  the  Celtic  temperament 
alone  does  not  explain  their  violence  of  action.  To  it  is  added  a 
degree  of  education  which  would  astonish  some  of  their  absentee 
employers.  There  are  scores  of  men  working  in  the  Welsh  pits  who 
could  pass  an  examination  in  Ibsen  or  Shaw  or  Swinburne,  or 
could  hold  their  own  in  an  argument  on  economics  or  politics  with 
the  average  member  of  Parliament.  They  owe  their  training,  not 
to  the  state  or  to  the  municipalities,  but  to  the  educational 
facilities  provided  by  the  Independent  Labor  Party  and  other 
organizations.  In  the  current  number  of  the  "Merthyr  Pioneer," 
which  may  be  regarded  as  the  organ  of  the  Independent  Labor 
Party  movement  in  South  Wales,  appears  a  column  and  a  half 
article,  one  of  a  series,  on  industrial  history,  dealing  with  the 
earliest  written  records  of  British  history  from  the  point  of  view 

358 


APPENDIX 

of  the  worker,  and  at  the  end  of  the  article  is  a  reference  to  the 
works  which  bear  on  the  subject.  For  years  past  free  evening 
classes  in  economics,  industrial  history,  and  similar  subjects  have 
been  held  in  I.  L.  P.  branch-rooms  in  the  various  mining  centers, 
and  many  of  the  younger  members  have  taken  full  advantage  of 
them. 

There  is  another  educational  movement  which  has  its  center  in 
Rhondda,  and  which  is  carried  on  mainly  by  past  students  of  the 
Central  Labor  College.  This  institution,  it  may  be  remembered, 
was  established  as  the  result  of  dissatisfaction  with  the  cur- 
riculum of  Raskin  College,  Oxford.  From  Oxford  it  was  trans- 
ferred to  Earl's  Court,  London,  and  thence  it  has  spread  the  doc- 
trine of  class  war  far  and  wide.  Recently  it  came  under  the 
joint  control  of  the  South  Wales  Miners'  Federation  and  the 
National  Union  of  Railwaymen,  and  special  efforts,  are  now  being 
made  to  extend  its  work  throughout  this  district,  chiefly  by  lec- 
tures in  the  workmen's  institutes  and  cooperative  societies'  rooms. 

A  third  educational  agency  is  an  organization  called  the  Plebs 
League,  which  aims  at  the  education  of  the  workers  by  means  of 
classes  in  sociology,  industrial  history,  Marxian  economics,  and  so 
on.  Not  only  do  hundreds  of  young  miners  absorb  this  teaching, 
but  many  of  them  are  sent  by  their  lodges  to  the  Central  Labor 
College,  London,  and  come  back  to  preach  what  they  have  learned 
— mainly  as  a  gospel  of  open  hostility  to  the  employers  and  con- 
stant agitation  for  the  complete  extraction  of  their  profits. 

The  Central  Labor  College,  described  above,  is  an  insti- 
tution in  the  west  of  London,  one  of  the  heads  of  which 
has  been  Mrs.  Bridges  Adams.  Mrs.  Adams  is  an  interna- 
tional Socialist,  who  has  made  a  lifelong  study  of  education. 
She  and  others  founded  Bebel  House  in  London,  which 
was  to  be  one  of  the  headquarters  of  the  international  so- 
cialist movement.  Then  came  the  war,  and  Bebel  House 
was  used  by  the  refugee  Russians  as  a  headquarters.  The 
police  raided  it  during  one  of  their  stupid  official  campaigns 
against  Russian  political  refugees.  Mrs.  Adams  has  waged 
a  continuous  and  at  last  a  successful  fight  against  the  Eng- 
lish official  betrayal  of  the  right  of  asylum.  I  give  a  full 

359 


APPENDIX 

account  of  the  matter  in  the  chapter  entitled  "The  Right  of 
Asylum."  The  point  is  of  interest  here  as  showing  how 
various  expressions  of  radicalism  interlock.  The  woman 
who  has  helped  the  miners  of  South  Wales  to  fashion  the 
weapons  of  their  powerful  syndicalist  movement  is  the  per- 
son who  has  defended  an  ancient  English  liberty. 

Mrs.  Adams  believes  that  little  trust  can  be  put  in  labor 
leaders.  They  grow  official,  tame  and  compromising,  and 
lose  responsiveness  to  the  aspirations  of  the  mass  of  the 
people.  She  believes  that  only  by  diffused  intelligence 
will  the  labor  movement  prosper,  and  not  through  individual 
men  becoming  under  secretaries,  pension  minister,  and  min- 
ister of  labor.  And  this  distrust  of  labor  leaders  she  ex- 
tends to  university  movements  for  "the  education  of  the 
workers."  She  fears  that  they  will  make  the  social  move- 
ment "upper  class,"  and  the  education  itself  a  desiccated, 
carefully  edited  non-explosive  brand.  So  Mrs.  Adams  and 
others  have  conducted  the  Central  Labor  College  as  an  in- 
stitution growing  out  of  the  people  themselves  rather  than 
something  given  them  from  above.  Step  by  step  with  the 
growth  of  her  institution  and  other  democratic  agencies  of 
education  the  Welsh  miners  have  raised  their  standard  of 
living  and  strengthened  their  position  in  the  community, 
till  to-day  they  are  a  force  so  formidable  that  the  Gov- 
ernment capitulated  on  their  latest  threat  to  strike,  and 
enforced  a  wage  increase.  They  are  probably  the  most 
radical  labor  group  in  Great  Britain. 

LAND 

The  Duke  of  Sutherland  has  decided  to  sell  his  Shrop- 
shire seat,  Lilleshall,  an  estate  of  7500  acres. 
In  a  letter  to  the  tenants  the  Duke  writes : 
I  have  hoped  against  hope  that  I  might  not  be  forced  to  part 

360 


APPENDIX 

with  what  remains  of  the  Lilleshall  Estate,  but  the  burden  of  taxa- 
tion, which  I  think  is  heaviest  on  a  landlord  whose  patrimony  con- 
sists mainly  of  large  landed  properties,  and  particularly  the  very 
heavy  death  duties  consequent  on  the  death  of  my  father,  have 
compelled  me  to  take  this  step.  The  prospect  of  a  severance 
from  the  property  and  old  association,  which  have  become  so  dear 
to  me,  is  a  bitter  one. 

The  war  has  delayed  much  good  reform  which  was 
briskly  on  its  way.  A  long  campaign  to  bring  man  and 
land  together  was  about  to  end  in  remedial  legislation. 
Now  these  reforms  have  been  postponed  till  peace  comes. 
But  legislation  will  be  introduced  after  the  close  of  the  war 
to  bring  labor  back  to  the  land,  and  to  bring  the  land  back 
from  grass.  The  famous  "New  Doomsday"  inquiry  showed 
that  slightly  more  than  2000  persons  owned  half  the  agri- 
cultural land  of  the  country. 

While  that  investigation  was  being  made  the  agricultural  labor- 
ers were  struggling  to  combine  for  higher  wages,  and  their  union 
was  shortly  afterwards  crushed  by  farmers,  clergy  and  landowners. 
As  yet  little  has  been  done  to  efface  the  deep  impress  made  alike 
upon  the  land  system  and  the  workers  on  the  land  by  two  hundred 
years  of  rule  by  the  British  landed  aristocracy. 

Ninety  per  cent,  of  the  agricultural  land  of  England 
and  Wales  is  worked  by  tenants  and  not  by  owners.  The 
net  agricultural  output  of  England  and  Wales  is  about 
$650,000,000  a  year.  The  land  is  under-cultivated. 

The  Government  appointed  The  Land  Inquiry  Committee 
to  find  out  why.  Their  report  was  brought  in  only  a  few 
months  before  the  war.  The  changes  they  advocate  were 
thus  postponed. 

The  Committee  found  that  one  reason  of  under-cultiva- 
tion  is  the  insecurity  of  tenure  of  the  farmer.  The  grow- 
ing frequency  of  sales  of  agricultural  estates,  with  notices 
to  quit,  or  a  higher  rent,  has  led  to  this  insecurity  of  the 

361 


APPENDIX 

smell  holder.  This  insecurity  of  tenure  prevents  the  tenant 
from  making  improvements.  He  deserves  compensation  for 
increased  fertility  due  to  continuous  good  farming.  In- 
stead, he  often  is  shackled  with  a  higher  rent  for  his  own 
improvements,  and  under  the  present  system  of  taxation 
these  improvements  are  rated  and  therefore  penalized. 

Another  reason  is  labor.  Bad  farming  and  low  wages 
together  have  driven  many  of  the  best  men  to  the  towns. 
Those  who  remain  as  laborers  are  underpaid. 

A  large  amount  of  land  is  withheld  from  its  best  use  for 
the  purpose  of  sport,  and  a  considerable  amount  more  is 
under-cultivated  and  in  some  cases  under-rented  owing  to 
game  preservation.  This  land,  instead  of  providing  food 
for  the  people,  provides  sport  and  delicacies  for  the  few. 
Between  1881  and  1901,  the  number  of  game-keepers  in- 
creased from  12,633  to  16,677,  while  during  the  same  pe- 
riod there  was  a  large  decline  in  the  rural  population. 
There  are  instances  of  agricultural  land,  formerly  rated  at 
20  shillings  or  more  an  acre,  turned  into  plantation,  and 
then  rated  at  one  shilling  an  acre,  including  the  sporting 
right.  In  such  cases  the  law  has  put  a  premium  upon  mis- 
using the  land.  Reforms  are  necessary  in  taxation  and 
rating  of  this  land  used  for  sport. 

Other  reasons  for  under-cultivation  follow:  Land  lies 
waste.  The  farmer  can  not  obtain  adequate  capital  nor 
facile  credit.  Better  transit  by  light  railways,  waterways, 
etc.,  is  needed.  Cooperation  is  still  imperfectly  practised. 
Scientific  education  is  required.  Much  of  the  land  must  be 
split  into  small  holdings.  Too  much  land  is  in  pasture  in- 
stead of  tillage.  Even  in  dairy  farming,  "more  cows  could 
be  maintained,  and,  if  they  are  properly  managed,  more 
profit  obtained,  on  an  arable  farm  than  on  a  grass  farm." 
The  "Nation"  has  reduced  the  total  area  in  England  and 


APPENDIX 

Wales  under  crops  and  grass  to  the  scale  of  48  acres,  and, 
according  to  the  latest  agricultural  returns,  shown  its  divi- 
sion. Twenty-nine  acres  are  in  permanent  grass,  five  acres 
clover  and  rotation  grasses,  14  acres  arable. 

The  Government  Committee  came  to  this  revolutionary 
conclusion : 

The  ownership  of  land  is  of  the  nature  of  a  monopoly,  and  the 
legal  power  which  a  landowner  has  over  his  tenant,  tempered 
though  it  be  in  many  cases  by  goodwill  and  kindly  personal  rela- 
tionship, is  detrimental  to  the  best  national  interests.  .  .  .  England 
has  become,  more  than  any  other  European  nation,  a  country  of 
farms  of  over  50  acres  as  opposed  to  Small  Holdings.  Nearly 
7,000,000  acres  are  in  the  hands  of  large  farmers  who  hold  more 
than  300  acres,  while  only  4,000,000  are  in  holdings  between  5  and 
50,  and  only  285,000  acres  are  in  holdings  between  1  and  5  acres. 

Small  holdings  are  one  of  the  remedies.  English  expe- 
rience shows  conclusively,  according  to  these  Government 
investigators,  that  small  holders  would  rather  rent  than  pur- 
chase. Their  report  is  unfavorable  to  state-aided  pur- 
chase. They  found  that  the  desire  to  purchase  is  not  for 
any  abstract  joy  of  ownership,  but  almost  universally  for 
the  factor  of  obtaining  security  of  tenure.  An  inquiry  was 
made  among  farmers.  Eighty  per  cent,  stated  that  they 
wished  security  of  tenure,  only  7^  per  cent  said  that  their 
real  object  was  the  satisfaction  of  ownership.  So  the  rem- 
edy proposed  is  to  create  security  of  tenure,  rather  than 
peasant  proprietorship.  It  should  be  said  that  there  is  a 
wide  difference  of  public  opinion  on  this  point  of  small 
rented  holding  versus  peasant  proprietorship.  The  Com- 
mittee sees  that  one  of  the  fundamentals  in  the  matter  is 
that  the  man  with  only  a  small  capital  needs  a  good  return 
on  his  money.  Land  as  an  investment  pays  back  only  about 
S  per  cent.  This  is  too  small  a  return  for  the  farmer.  He 

363 


APPENDIX 

will  do  better  to  rent  his  holding,  and  invest  his  money  in 
seed,  fertilizer  and  machinery.  Land  is  more  costly  than 
its  agricultural  value  warrants  because  there  is  a  demand 
for  it  for  social  and  sporting  purposes. 

The  Committee  urges  that  Land  Courts  shall  be  es- 
tablished in  England  and  Wales  with  powers  to  grant  se- 
curity of  tenure  subject  to  good  farming,  to  fix  fair  rents, 
to  decide  questions  of  compensations,  and  to  fix  the  price 
payable  upon  compulsory  acquisition  of  land  by  public  bod- 
ies. The  existence  of  this  Land  Court  will  hasten  the  ac- 
quisition of  land  by  public  bodies  for  small  holdings. 

Ordinary  agricultural  laborers  in  England  make  an  aver- 
age around  $4.20  a  week.  There  is  little  opposition  to  the 
proposal  that  a  legal  minimum  wage  shall  be  established  for 
them  by  a  wage  tribunal.  This  wage  must  be  such  as  will 
enable  the  laborer  to  live  in  a  state  of  physical  efficiency 
and  to  pay  a  commercial  rent  for  his  cottage. 

For  his  bad  condition  is  partly  due  to  bad  housing.  The 
number  of  cottages  for  the  working  class  in  the  rural  dis- 
tricts of  England  and  Wales  is  about  1,200,000.  One  hun- 
dred and  twenty  thousand  new  cottages  are  needed,  espe- 
cially cottages  with  three  bedrooms.  By  "  bad  housing  in 
rural  districts  thousands  of  children  and  adults  are  dying 
or  being  permanently  injured  in  health  every  year.  ...  It 
should  be  made  a  definite  statutory  duty  of  every  Rural 
District  Council  to  provide  a  cottage  for  every  person 
permanently  employed  in  a  rural  district." 

By  thus  increasing  the  independence  of  the  laborer,  he 
will  be  in  a  position  to  take  advantage  of  the  existent  Small 
Holdings  and  Allotments  Act.  This,  combined  with  better 
machinery,  through  Parish  Councils  and  Government  of- 
ficials, will  secure  the  use  of  a  small  piece  of  land  for  every 
dweller  in  the  countryside.  In  that  way  the  ladder  is  built 

364 


APPENDIX 

by  which  he  rises  from  a  landless  underpaid  wage-slave  to 
a  free  householder  with  access  to  the  land. 

It  is  further  advocated  that  the  Crown  Land  Commis- 
sioners purchase  large  areas  of  land  in  different  parts  of 
the  country  for  the  purpose  of  extending  their  policy  of 
creating  small  holdings. 

Who  is  to  pay  for  the  minimum  wage  of  labor  and  the 
reduced  rent  of  small  holdings?  The  landlord,  not  the 
farmer.  The  legislation  for  a  minimum  wage  is  to  provide 
that  the  farmer  who  pays  it  and  who  is  able  to  prove  that 
the  rise  in  wages  has  put  upon  him  an  increased  burden 
shall  have  the  right  to  apply  to  the  Land  Court  for  a  re- 
adjustment of  his  rent.  And  that  rent,  in  any  case,  is  to 
be  a  fair  rent  and  not  a  competitive  rent. 

"A  competitive  rent  is  the  sum  which  one  farmer,  com- 
peting with  other  farmers,  will  pay  for  land  rather  than  go 
without  it.  A  fair  rent  is  the  surplus  which  in  a  normal 
season  will  remain  over  from  the  produce  of  the  land  if 
worked  by  a  farmer  of  average  ability,  after  providing  for 
all  necessary  outgoings,  including  a  fair  wage  to  the  laborer, 
and  after  allowing  to  the  farmer  a  reasonable  remunera- 
tion." 

In  these  ways,  bad  housing,  over-crowding,  malnutrition, 
tuberculosis  will  be  done  away  with  in  the  life  of  the  la- 
borer, and  the  land  itself  freed  for  community  service.  In 
the  reform,  two  points  of  view  will  be  kept  in  mind — "The 
social  point  of  view,  which  looks  on  the  health  and  housing 
of  the  laborer  and  the  poorer  villager;  the  economic  point 
of  view  which  treats  agriculture  as  an  industry  that  must 
be  run  at  a  profit." 

It  is  historically  just  that  the  landowner  shall  stand  a 
portion  of  the  burden  of  reform.  Dr.  Gilbert  Slater  has 
outlined  the  process  by  which  the  self-respecting  English 

365 


APPENDIX 

peasantry  were  forced  off  the  land.  By  rack  rents  (an 
economic  rent  based  on  rising  values,  as  distinguished  from 
the  customary  rent),  by  a  system  of  fines,  the  landlords 
appropriated  to  themselves  the  whole  of  the  new  profits 
of  changed  conditions  through  world  commerce.  The  ten- 
ants resigned  their  holdings  into  the  hands  of  the  landlord. 
The  arable  land  was  turned  into  sheep  farms,  evictions  were 
widely  made,  and  a  thriving  village  would  be  replaced  by 
"ruined  cottages,  and  rough  grass  nibbled  by  flocks,  running, 
we  are  told,  in  some  cases  to  as  many  as  24,000  sheep, 
tended  by  a  few  shepherds  and  their  dogs.  This  was  the 
great  enclosure  movement  of  the  sixteenth  century." 

Enclosure  was  not  the  turning  of  waste  lands  into  culti- 
vated fields,  but  the  conversion  of  arable  fields  into  desolate 
sheep  walks. 

"Early  in  the  eighteenth  century  began  the  series  of 
private  acts  of  enclosure,  of  which  4000  in  all,  covering 
7,000,000  acres,  were  passed  before  the  General  Enclosure 
Act  of  1845.  During  the  same  period  it  is  probable  that 
about  the  same  area  was  enclosed  without  application  to 
Parliament.  ...  In  a  proportion  of  cases,  the  principal 
landowner  effected  enclosure  by  first  of  all  making  him- 
self the  sole  proprietor." 

Enclosure  meant  throwing  open  fields  together  and  build- 
ing a  hedge  around  the  total.  In  this  way  the  small  owners 
were  got  rid  of.  "The  majority  of  the  small  tenant  farm- 
ers had  to  choose  between  emigrating  elsewhere,  or  becom- 
ing landless  laborers.  .  .  .  Henceforward  there  was  a  gulf 
between  the  laborer  and  the  farmer." 

EMPIRE  RESOURCES 

I  have  to  limit  myself  to  a  sentence  for  programs  of  re- 
construction, each  of  which  would  require  a  volume  for  ade- 

366 


APPENDIX 

quate  summary.  The  linking  up  of  the  resources  of  the 
empire  is  a  vast  scheme,  with  a  committee  already  at  work 
upon  it.  The  empire  resources  development  committee  has 
been  formed  to  open  up  new  sources  of  revenue  by  develop- 
ing the  empire  through  state  aid  to  private  enterprise. 
Selected  resources,  assets  ripe  for  development.  Land, 
palm-oil  products,  fisheries  are  among  its  immediate  agenda. 
Land  will  be  sold  or  leased,  and  will  also  be  used  as  an 
instrument  of  production,  for  stock-raising,  and  the  estab- 
lishment of  plantations.  Water-supplies,  railways,  har- 
bors, grain-elevators,  and  factories  are  all  envisaged  in  the 
scheme.  The  development  board  is  to  be  constituted  of  cap- 
tains of  industry.  Among  the  men  backing  the  plan  are 
Rudyard  Kipling,  Sir  Horace  Plunkett,  Dunraven,  Grey, 
Selborne  Desborough,  and  Sir  Starr  Jameson. 

It  is  impossible  for  the  empire  to  pay  off  its  enormous 
war  debt  under  the  existing  system  of  taxation.  Demo- 
cratic finance  has  to  strike  out  new  ideas,  and  this  is  one 
of  them:  to  make  use  of  the  "finest  undeveloped  estate 
which  has  ever  been  known  in  the  history  of  the  world," 
and  to  develop  these  latent  resources  of  the  empire  by  a 
centralized  semi-state  board,  making  use  of  the  services  of 
experts.  This  organization  will  thus  be  a  commercial 
pioneer,  supplying  capital  and  knowledge,  control  and  or- 
ganization, to  the  scattered  pockets  and  pools  and  paying 
veins  of  the  ungarnered  wealth  of  a  quarter  of  the  earth. 

Alfred  Bigland,  who  has  had  forty  years  of  experience 
in  the  importation  of  raw  materials,  says  of  the  plan: 

Some  time  ago  the  Minister  of  Munitions  asked  me  to  take 
charge  of  all  oils  that  contained  glycerine  and  he  pointed  out  the 
Government  controlled  the  whole  of  the  whale  fishing  in  the 
Antarctic  Ocean.  By  giving  licenses  to  the  men  to  fish  in  these 
waters  on  condition  that  the  oil  was  retained  for  this  country  we 
have  received  during  the  war  660,000  barrels  of  this  oil.  It  was 

367 


APPENDIX 

a  revelation  that  we  had  such  a  supply,  and  while  the  Germans 
were  paying,  for  little  lots,  £300  a  ton  for  such  oil,  we  are  buying 
it  for  the  Government  at  £38  a  ton. 

In  the  Pacific  Ocean,  bordering  on  British  Columbia;  in  the 
mouth  of  the  St.  Lawrence;  and  the  waters  around  Newfound- 
land and  Labrador,  apart  from  our  own  home  waters — under  an 
Empire  monopoly  (though  we  must  have  the  consent  of  the 
dominions  in  this  matter),  we  could  become  the  purveyors  of  fish 
in  all  forms,  almost  to  the  whole  world.  Already  Newfoundland 
was  sending  on  an  average  300,000  tons  of  cod  to  the  Mediter- 
ranean and  neutral  countries.  There  was  practically  no  limit  to 
the  quantity,  and  the  Grand  Trunk  Pacific  had  already  offered 
refrigerating  plant  to  bring  fish  from  Prince  Rupert  Island  to 
Liverpool  at  a  penny  a  ton,  which  would  be  reduced  to  three 
farthings  or  a  halfpenny  on  big  Government  contracts  being  en- 
tered into.  This  development  could  take  place  immediately.  The 
necessary  shipbuilding  and  equipment  must  take  time,  but  after 
the  war — if  the  Government  allowed  it — the  whole  of  the  vessels 
now  used  in  the  North  Sea  for  mine  sweeping  and  other  purposes 
would  form  the  nucleus  of  an  Empire  fishing  fleet.  The  quantity 
of  fish  consumed  in  this  country  was  600,000  tons  a  year,  which 
was  equal  to  one-fortieth  of  the  total  food  consumed  per  head 
of  the  population,  and  the  scheme  might  increase  the  fish  supply 
to  at  least  four  times  that  quantity. 

It  will  take  ten  years  to  develop  the  ideas  the  committee  wish 
to  carry  out.  It  must  be  apparent  to  every  one  that  no  private 
individual  could  accomplish  such  a  great  work  in  the  way  that 
an  Empire  Council  could  do.  There  was  the  objection  that  it 
would  be  Socialistic  for  the  State  to  carry  on  such  a  business;  but 
the  committee  would  begin  where  vested  interests  were  the  least 
in  force — except  as  regarded  the  fishermen  engaged  in  the  business 
— and  that  was  in  the  bed  of  the  ocean.  All  on  board  the  fishing 
vessels,  from  the  captain  to  the  lowest  man,  should  participate  in 
the  proceeds  of  the  catches.  If  the  State  secured  a  penny  a 
pound,  which  was  £9  6s.  a  ton,  it  would  be  quite  possible  to  make 
a  gross  profit  in  10  years  of  £36,000,000,  out  of  which  the  sinking 
fund  for  the  development  charges  must  be  met.  It  would  be  for 
the  State  to  regulate  the  prices  in  every  town  in  the  country; 
and  the  State  should  have  the  control  of  the  home  fisheries  as 
welL 


APPENDIX 

Sir  William  Lever  has  stated  that  an  expenditure  of  ten 
thousand  dollars  in  bringing  two  hundred  acres  of  cocoa- 
nut-palms  to  maturity  may  be  estimated  to  give  an  income 
of  ten  thousand  dollars  an  acre  in  about  ten  years.  So  it 
will  be  an  immense  source  of  income  for  the  state  to  de- 
velop the  vast  imperial  holdings  of  palm-lands,  which  prob- 
ably amount  to  several  million  acres. 

WHO  DOES  THE  WORK? 

The  question  has  been  often  asked,  How  has  it  been  pos- 
sible to  take  out  four  million  men  and  still  carry  on  the 
productive  industries  of  Great  Britain? 

The  clearest  shortest  answer  to  this  has  been  given  by 
Sir  Leo  Chiozza  Money: 

(1)  The  men  remaining  have,  as  a  whole,  produced  more  than 
in  peace. 

(2)  There  has  been  a  better  organization  of  production  in  some 
trades,  notably  the  engineering  trades. 

(3)  Large  amounts  of  new  capital  have  been  applied  by  the 
Government  to  many  important  industries. 

(4)  There  has  been  a  removal  of  restrictions  upon  output. 

(5)  Many  women  have  taken  up  productive  work  for  the  first 
time. 

(6)  There  has  been  a  great  contraction  of  the  vast  amount  of 
male  labor  normally  employed  upon  non-productive  and  uneconomic 
work;  in  some  cases  the  unnecessary  work  has  disappeared  alto- 
gether; in  others  it  has  been  taken  up  and  is  now  performed  by 
women  or  girls. 

He  goes  on  to  say: 

Before  the  war  a  very  large  proportion  of  our  male  workers 
were  engaged  in  non-productive  work.  All  our  mines,  quarries, 
mills,  factories,  and  workshops  employed  only  4%  million  men. 
But  our  male  population  aged  eighteen  years  and  upwards  num- 
bered thirteen  millions.  Therefore  it  was  true  that  OF  OUR 
MALE  POPULATION  AGED  EIGHTEEN  YEARS  AND 

369 


APPENDIX 

OVER  ONLY  ABOUT  ONE  IN  THREE  WAS  ENGAGED 
DIRECTLY  IN  PRODUCING  INDUSTRIAL  WEALTH. 

What  were  all  the  rest  doing?  Distribution,  education,  Govern- 
ment service,  commerce,  etc.,  are  all  important,  but  can  it  be 
possible  that  two  out  of  three  males — to  say  nothing  of  females 
— were  needed  to  carry  them  on,  as  compared  with  only  one  in 
three  devoted  to  producing  things?  Most  certainly  the  devotion  of 
so  large  a  proportion  of  males  to  non-productive  tasks  was  not  only 
unnecessary,  but  a  sign  and  a  portent  of  industrial  decadence. 

The  taking  of  men  from  non-productive  employments  has  en- 
abled women  very  easily  to  make  substitution  in  many  cases. 
A  woman  works  the  lift  which  before  the  war  was  worked  by  an 
able-bodied  man,  doing  work  which  no  able-bodied  man  should  ever 
do.  The  laundry  van,  which  before  the  war  was  driven  by  an 
able-bodied  man,  is  now  driven  by  a  girl.  You  go  to  the  bank  and 
see  capable  young  women  dealing  with  the  books  and  papers  which 
yesterday  were  supposed  to  demand  the  services  of  stalwart  young 
men. 

At  the  insurance  offices,  which  before  the  war  employed  a  great 
army  of  young  men,  girls  find  no  difficulty  in  accomplishing  the 
work.  At  the  offices  of  the  National  Health  Insurance  Com- 
missioners the  work  is  being  done  by  girls  quite  as  well  as  by 
the  battalion  or  so  of  men  who  recently  were  thought  to  be  needed 
for  it.  In  tens  of  thousands  of  commercial,  Government,  and 
local  government  offices  female  labor  is  doing  what  the  other  year 
was  thought  to  be  men's  work. 

The  idea,  therefore,  that  because  a  man  was  a  petty  clerk,  or 
a  shop  assistant,  or  a  lift-man,  or  a  driver,  or  a  door-opener, 
or  a  tout,  or  a  commission  agent,  or  something  of  that  sort,  before 
the  war,  he  must  necessarily  go  back  to  his  old  job,  while  the 
woman  who  has  taken  his  job  is  to  return  to  her  old  work,  is 
entirely  mistaken. 

Organize  our  power  supply;  reform  our  railway  system;  set  to 
work  on  a  decent  canal  system;  determine  production  in  the 
metal  trades  and  the  chemical  trades;  enlarge  our  wheat  area 
definitely  and  compulsorily.  Do  these  things,  and  there  will  be 
such  a  call  for  labor  in  connection  with  them,  and  in  connection 
with  other  useful  employments  arising  from  them,  that  in  peace  as 
in  war,  we  shall  find  that  the  difficulty  is  not  to  find  jobs  for  the 
men,  but  to  find  men  for  the  jobs. 

370 


APPENDIX 

THE  CHURCH 

The  City  Temple,  the  leading  Noncomformist  church 
of  England,  believing  that  "the  brotherhood  of  the 
trenches"  might  be  extended  to  the  Christian  church,  invited 
Dean  Henson  of  Durham  Cathedral,  belonging  to  the 
Church  of  England,  to  preach  in  the  City  Temple  pulpit. 
The  dean  consented.  On  January  31,  1917,  "The  Times" 
reports : 

The  York  branch  of  the  Yorkshire  District  Union  of  the  English 
Church  Union  yesterday  discussed  the  Dean  of  Durham's  intention 
to  preach  in  the  City  Temple.  The  Rev.  P.  J.  Shaw,  rector  of  All 
Saints',  North-street,  York,  moved  a  resolution  deploring  the 
intention  of  Dean  Henson,  which  he  described  as  a  flagrant  viola- 
tion of  Church  order  and  discipline.  The  motion  was  carried. 

COMPULSORY  DEMOCRACY 

Mr.    Balfour   has    stated   the   present   concentration   of 

effort  in  clear  terms: 

• 

All  we  can  do  for  the  war  is  to  produce  men  to  fight,  men  and 
women  to  work  at  warlike  munitions,  men  and  women  to  work  at 
those  commodities  that  we  can  export  and  with  which  we  can  buy 
abroad  other  munitions  of  war.  If  you  divert  by  your  expenditure 
national  energies  into  wrong  channels,  by  so  much  you  are  divert- 
ing resources  on  which  we  depend  for  finishing  the  war  and  end- 
ing it  with  a  successful  peace. 

Let  us  transpose  that  into  its  equivalent  for  normal  life. 

All  we  can  do  for  the  welfare  of  the  community  is  to  produce 
happy  and  healthy  persons  to  live  a  creative  life,  men  and  women 
to  work  at  productive  industries,  men  and  women  to  work  at  those 
commodities  that  we  can  export  and  with  which  we  can  buy  abroad 
other  products  for  the  creation  of  a  life  of  reasonable  satisfaction. 
If,  by  your  expenditure  on  personal  luxury  or  by  your  investment 
of  capital  on  non-productive  trades,  you  divert  national  energies 
into  wrong  channels,  by  so  much  you  are  diverting  resources  on 

371 


APPENDIX 

which  we  depend  for  establishing  a  high  standard  of  living  for 
the  community,  and  so  finishing  the  labor  war  and  ending  it  with 
a  successful  peace. 

The  principle  of  organization  and  concentration,  backed 
by  compulsion,  in  the  interests  of  the  community  has  for 
the  first  time  in  English  history  been  widely  applied. 
Once  applied,  it  becomes  permanent,  and  is  subject  to  ex- 
tension. The  compulsion  has  been  used  to  force  men  to  go 
and  die.  It  has  been  used  to  make  them  work  at  certain 
jobs  at  a  fixed  rate  of  pay  and  to  give  up  other  jobs.  But 
it  has  not  been  used,  except  in  "controlled"  firms  and  in  a 
limited  way,  to  take  control  of  profits,  and  it  has  not  been 
used  to  force  capital  to  invest  in  one  enterprise  and  not  in 
another.  A  man's  life  is  not  his  own,  his  power  of  work 
is  not  his  own;  but  his  money,  if  he  is  wealthy,  is  his  own. 
He  can  invest  it  in  making  absinthe;  he  can  lend  it  to 
an  exploiter  of  African  labor;  he  can  create  an  anti-so- 
cial industry  with  it.  One  needs  only  to  state  it  for  its 
absurdity  to  be  seen.  Capital  will  be  increasingly  governed 
as  labor  is  already  governed.  When  political  democracy 
was  formed,  it  was  inevitable  that  industrial  democracy 
would  result,  however  tardily.  So  it  is  with  any  partial  ap- 
plication of  a  principle.  Once  it  begins  to  operate,  it  grad- 
ually extends  itself  over  the  full  area  of  its  function.  The 
principle  of  compulsion,  applied  to  the  life  and  labor  of  men, 
will  a  little  later  reach  property,  that  last  sacred  strong- 
hold of  privilege. 

These  changes  are  more  searching  than  the  direct  changes 
by  death  and  wastage  of  the  war,  but  it  is  the  war  that  has 
hastened  them.  "The  success  of  this  revolution  was  chiefly 
due  to  the  wisdom  of  those  who  allowed  it  to  develop  grad- 
ually and  almost  imperceptibly  from  existing  institutions." 

373 


APPENDIX 

COOPERATION,  SOCIALISM,  SYNDICALISM 

Private  capitalism,  in  its  old  terms  of  unchecked  profit- 
eering and  laissez-faire  exploitation,  has  already  been 
scrapped  as  a  method  of  organizing  industry.  Individual- 
ism, with  its  instinct  for  property,  will  of  course  survive  in 
many  forms.  Thus  in  agriculture  we  are  to-day  seeing  a 
powerful  movement  toward  the  private  ownership  of  prop- 
erty, and  that  property,  instead  of  being  held  in  a  few 
hands,  will  be  widely  distributed.  The  restoration  of  peas- 
ant-land proprietorship  in  Ireland  is  an  instance.  The 
movement  toward  tenant  holdings  in  England  and  Wales 
is  another  instance. 

But  industrial  England  is  looking  to  other  solutions  than 
individualism  for  the  mass  of  her  workers,  and  has  already 
put  those  solutions  into  partial  operation.  One  of  those 
solutions  is  democratic  control  of  industry  by  the  workers. 
That  means  precisely  that  associations  of  producers  (trade- 
unions  and  guilds)  will  exercise  control  over  the  conditions 
of  their  work.  I  have  outlined  this  solution  in  the  chapter 
on  "The  Discovery."  It  is  the  solution  by  syndicalism. 

The  other  solution  is  the  control  of  industry  by  associa- 
tions of  consumers.  Those  associations  are  voluntary,  as 
in  cooperation,  and  compulsory,  as  in  state  and  municipal 
ownership.  This  is  the  solution  by  cooperation  and  social- 
ism. There  is  no  difference  in  principle  between  coopera- 
tion and  socialism,  but  there  is  a  sharply  marked  differ- 
ence in  the  area  of  application. 

Every  solution,  whether  by  association  of  producers  or  by 
association  of  consumers,  needs  the  check  and  balance  of 
the  other.  The  syndicalist  will  exploit  the  consumer  by  high 
prices  and  over-emphasis  on  the  social  value  of  his  own 
particular  trade.  The  cooperator  and  state  socialist  will 

373 


APPENDIX 

exploit  the  worker  in  order  to  get  products  at  a  low  price, 
and  state  socialism  builds  a  powerful  bureaucracy  of  expert 
officials,  who  form  an  oligarchy  inside  the  democracy.  The 
ineradicable  instinct  for  property  will  temper  both  move- 
ments, and  Parliament  will  remain  one  of  the  direct  ex- 
pressions of  the  people's  wish  between  these  contending 
forces,  and  will  continue  to  act  as  a  corrective  of  modern 
government,  which  is  government  by  cabinet  and  committee, 
leaning  increasingly  toward  state  socialism.  In  short,  no 
one  movement  or  tendency  fully  expresses  democracy, 
which  must  use  each  in  carefully  controlled  degree.  The 
method  of  that  control  is  the  problem  of  the  future.  The 
cabinet  and  the  bureaucracy  have  meanwhile  grown  strong, 
and  Parliament  has  weakened.  In  the  future  no  one  tend- 
ency inside  the  social  movement  is  likely  to  be  the  Aaron's 
rod  and  swallow  up  the  contending  tendencies,  though  so- 
cialists, syndicalists,  and  cooperators  make  the  same  whole- 
hearted claims  for  their  pet  solution  that  advocates  of  big 
business,  free  trade,  and  empire  development  make.  Out 
of  all  these  powerful  "pushes"  will  come  a  resultant,  a 
collision  into  harmony,  which  will  be  the  new  order,  the 
reconstructed  community,  the  organized  state  under  demo- 
cratic control. 

A  figure  will  make  this  clear.  In  the  warfare  in  France 
and  Flanders  there  is  a  series  of  separate  spaces  that  can 
be  made  untenable  for  the  enemy.  There  are  the  differing 
zones  of  shrapnel  and  of  infantry  fire  and  a  space  between 
them,  and  that  space  belongs  to  the  machine-gun.  There 
is  a  similar  division  of  effective  function  in  the  attack  on 
the  capitalistic  system.  There  is  an  area  that  the  municipal 
and  governmental  control  of  industry  does  not  reach,  and  a 
portion  (not  the  whole)  of  that  area  is  reached  by  the  co- 
operative movement.  There  is  a  further  area  reached  by 

374 


APPENDIX 

syndicalism.  In  the  near  future  at  least  there  will  be  left 
much  "dead  ground"  of  which  private  enterprise  will  still 
alone  have  the  range. 

Thus  in  the  most  careful  study  ever  made  of  the  co- 
operative movement,  the  report  of  the  committee  of  the 
Fabian  Research  Department,  the  possible  extent  of  the  an- 
nual trade  of  the  movement  is  put  at  "something  like  four 
to  five  hundred  millions  sterling,  being  only  one-fifth  of 
the  total  national  production."  Also,  cooperation  "offers 
in  itself  nothing  in  the  nature  of  a  complete  solution  of  the 
problem  of  the  status  of  the  workers." 

And  so  with  the  limitations  of  public  ownership.  Some 
of  the  coming  trouble  will  be  a  fight  of  syndicalism  against 
state  socialism.  The  state,  as  manager  of  industry  and 
employer  of  labor,  operating  through  its  bureaucracy  of 
experts,  will  issue  orders  to  its  employees.  They  will 
claim  the  right  to  strike.  Will  they  then  be  "called  to  the 
colors,"  as  was  done  in  the  French  syndicalist  strike? 
Will  the  troops  be  ordered  out  against  them,  as  is  done  in 
Colorado,  Illinois,  and  Pennsylvania?  Is  the  right  to 
strike  to  be  taken  from  government  employees?  If  so, 
the  socialistic  state  will  become  an  oligarchy  of  expert  of- 
ficials possessing  a  tyrannical  power.  It  will  cease  to  be 
under  democratic  control.  For  the  socialistic  state  is  not 
the  consummation  of  democracy ;  it  is  only  one  expression  of 
democracy.  And  syndicalism  is  another  expression.  To 
no  one  expression  can  the  full  power  be  safely  handed 
over. 

What  has  cooperation  in  Great  Britain  done  after  sev- 
enty years  of  experience?  It  has  established  and  has  run- 
ning at  the  present  time  fifteen  distributive  stores,  with 
three  million  members,  controlling  sales  to  the  value  of 
four  hundred  million  dollars  a  year,  and  producing  goods 

375 


APPENDIX 

to  the  value  of  seventy  million  dollars  a  year.  The  re- 
search committee  summarizes  the  service  of  cooperation.  It 
has  afforded  in  manufacturing  and  in  wholesale  and  retail 
trading  an  alternative  of  working-class  origin  to  the  capi- 
talist system.  Manual  workers  have  proved  themselves 
capable  of  administering  it  under  democratic  control.  It 
has  steadily  grown  for  seventy  years.  It  has  kept  down 
retail  prices,  distributed  millions  of  dollars  as  dividend  on 
purchases,  money  that  would  have  gone  to  the  capitalist 
class.  By  cooperation  the  manual  workers  are  receiving  a 
training  in  the  administration  of  self-governing  industrial 
republics.  Cooperation  within  its  own  area  has  done  away 
with  that  specialized  brain  power  known  as  directive  con- 
trol, which  consists  in  cunning  for  the  defeat  of  rivals, 
under  cutting,  nibbling  at  wages,  adulteration,  cornering 
the  market,  promotion,  stock-exchange  gambling.  A  ten- 
dency in  cooperation,  as  in  socialism,  is  to  put  administra- 
tion into  the  hands  of  salaried  officials.  Thus  the  English 
Cooperative  Wholesale  Society  has  twenty-one  thousand 
paid  employees,  directed  by  a  salaried  committe  of  thirty- 
two  members. 

The  business  of  cooperation  is  not  likely  to  go  far  be- 
yond the  articles  consumed  by  that  portion  of  the  wage- 
earning  class  enjoying  fairly  regular  employment  and 
wages,  together  with  the  "black-coated  proletariat" — clerks, 
petty  officials,  and  the  like.  The  submerged  tenth  are  un- 
able to  avail  themselves  of  cooperation,  and  the  one-eighth 
or  one-tenth  of  the  population  known  as  the  middle  and 
upper  classes  do  not  care  to  avail  themselves  of  it.  But  it 
is  those  other  classes,  from  unskilled  laborer  to  minor  pro- 
fessionals, with  incomes  from  $250  to  $2000  a  year,  who 
are  increasing  in  numbers  and  importance,  and  who  are 
entering  into  control  of  the  new  social  order.  Cooperation 

376 


APPENDIX 

as  an  association  of  consumers  will  probably  not  touch  the 
greater  part  of  agriculture,  the  greater  part  of  manufac- 
ture for  foreign  consumption,  the  industries  providing  ma- 
terial and  plant  for  other  industries,  and  those  industries, 
like  the  post-office  and  the  railway  system,  in  which  the 
day-by-day  consumers  do  not  constitute  a  suitable  unit 
of  administration,  or  in  which  administration  by  the  com- 
pulsory machinery  of  national  or  municipal  government 
is  required.  Accordingly,  four-fifths  of  national  produc- 
tion will  remain  outside  the  reach  of  cooperative  organi- 
zation. Cooperation  is  not  an  alternative  to  the  capitalist 
system  for  a  majority  of  manual  workers.  It  is  an  alterna- 
tive for  a  minority. 

What  has  socialism  done?  The  summary  was  given  by 
the  Fabian  Research  Committee  in  the  late  spring  of  1915. 
Government  has  already  become  socialistic.  It  has  out- 
grown its  police  power  alone  and  has  become  an  administra- 
tion of  public  services — housekeeping  on  a  national  scale. 
How  are  we  to  know  the  difference  between  governmental 
and  capitalist  enterprise?  The  test  of  whether  adminis- 
tration in  a  given  department  and  area  is  socialistic  is 
whether  any  excess  of  receipts  over  cost  of  working  goes 
not  to  the  profit  of  the  administrators  or  of  any  private 
owner  or  shareholders,  but  to  public  purposes.  Down  to 
a  century  ago  government  concerned  itself  with  provision 
for  religious  rites,  external  defense,  police,  the  adminis- 
tration of  justice,  and  the  maintenance  of  prisons,  poor 
relief,  regulation,  inspection,  audit,  and  taxation.  Since 
then  government  has  entered  many  fields. 

It  has  entered  the  domain  of  communication  and  trans- 
port, transmitting  communications,  conveying  persons,  and 
transporting  commodities.  This  industry  employs  at 
least  one-tenth  of  all  the  working  population,  and  absorbs 

377 


APPENDIX 

an  expenditure  of  a  thousand  million  dollars  a  year.  This 
largest  of  all  industries  in  its  three  functions  is  passing  in- 
creasingly throughout  the  civilized  world  into  governmental 
organization.  Thus  the  inland  conveyance  of  letters  by 
private  enterprise  is  to-day  left  to  countries  like  Abyssinia, 
Afghanistan,  and  Arabia. 

The  construction  and  maintenance  of  roads  is  virtually 
nowhere  a  service  of  private  capitalism.  The  United 
Kingdom  is  now  spending  yearly  nearly  one  hundred  mil- 
lion dollars  on  thoroughfares,  with  approximately  100,000 
men  constantly  employed. 

Local  authorities  in  Great  Britain  in  1913  were  operat- 
ing 171  tramways  as  against  one  in  1881.  In  1913  the 
municipal  capital  in  tramways  was  $275,000,000. 

In  waterways,  embanking,  lighting,  watching,  ports,  the 
docks  and  quays  are  nearly  everywhere  provided  and 
maintained  by  government.  The  capital  outlay  in  Great 
Britain  is  over  five  hundred  million  dollars. 

Of  the  total  railway  mileage  of  the  world,  just  about 
half  is  owned  and  worked  entirely  by  government  enter- 
prise. The  railways  of  Great  Britain  have  been  in  the 
hands  of  private  capital,  but  during  the  war  the  Government 
has  controlled  them,  and  there  is  a  powerful  movement  to- 
ward nationalizing  them.  This  movement  resulted  a  few 
weeks  ago  in  nationalizing  the  railways  of  Ireland. 

In  public  health  and  sanitary  work  we  see  in  local-govern- 
ment water  undertakings  of  Great  Britain  twenty  thousand 
men  employed,  and  a  thousand  million  dollars  administered 
in  premises,  plant,  and  machinery. 

The  removal  of  house  refuse,  city  drainage,  and  street 
sweeping  are  increasingly  governmental  services. 

Public  baths,  public  laundries,  and  swimming-pools  repre- 

378 


APPENDIX 

sent  a  municipal  investment  in  Great  Britain  of  twenty-five 
million  dollars. 

State  medical  service  is  steadily  spreading:  doctoring  for 
the  destitute,  governmental  insurance  systems,  public  med- 
ical service  in  universities,  hospitals,  asylums,  schools,  pris- 
ons, health  departments,  workhouses,  army,  navy,  police, 
post-office.  Nurses,  chemists,  and  doctors  are  rapidly  be- 
coming the  officers  of  the  community.  Where  already  per- 
haps one  hundred  thousand  of  them  are  in  public  institu- 
tions and  government  departments  the  rest  will  shortly  be. 

In  land  improvement,  there  are  already  over  three  hun- 
dred local  commissioners  of  sewers,  spending  about  two  and 
a  half  million  dollars  a  year.  Several  million  dollars  a 
year  are  spent  in  India  in  new  irrigation  canals,  in  improv- 
ing the  network  of  water-channels,  in  banking  river  chan- 
nels. At  this  moment  Ireland  requires  an  expenditure  of 
a  few  million  dollars  to  drain  her  bogs,  set  her  river-levels, 
and  establish  an  irrigation  system. 

Public  education,  recreation,  parks,  libraries,  music, 
dances,  piers,  museums,  art  galleries,  government  books  and 
other  printed  matter,  are  all  employing  men  and  women 
and  absorbing  capital.  The  printing  bill  of  the  British 
Government  alone  is  over  five  million  dollars  a  year. 

Banking  facilities  are  passing  under  governmental  con- 
trol. Metallic  coinage  and  the  issue  of  paper  money  are 
state  services.  British  post-office  savings-bank  deposits  and 
trustee  savings-bank  deposits  amount  to  twelve  hundred 
and  fifty  million  dollars.  The  British  Government  lends 
money  to  land-owners,  local  authorities,  public-utility  socie- 
ties for  agricultural  improvements,  drainage,  and  housing, 
and  to  the  householder  wishing  to  purchase  his  own  home. 
In  the  purchase  and  sale  of  securities  for  customers  the  post- 
379 


APPENDIX 

master-general  of  Great  Britain  does  a  business  of  millions 
a  year.  In  1915  the  British  Government  took  under  its 
control  the  investment  of  capital.  In  1914  the  Bank  of 
England,  as  the  agent  of  the  British  Government,  pur- 
chased over  five  hundred  million  dollars  of  bills  of  ex- 
change. 

In  light,  heat,  and  power  the  same  tendency  toward  state 
and  municipal  ownership  is  at  work.  Over  three  hundred 
gas  undertakings  in  Great  Britain  are  municipal,  and  the 
capital  is  two  hundred  and  twenty-five  million  dollars.  The 
Widnes  town  council  claimed  four  years  ago  that  at  from 
sixteen  to  twenty-four  cents  per  thousand  cubic  feet  it  was 
supplying  gas,  with  a  profit,  cheaper  than  any  other  gas 
plant,  governmental  or  capitalist,  in  the  world.  Nearly 
three  hundred  cities  and  towns  in  Great  Britain  are  now 
supplied  with  light,  heat,  and  power  by  the  municipal  elec- 
trical department,  representing  an  investment  of  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  million  dollars,  annual  gross  receipts  of  over 
twenty  millions,  and  employing  about  twenty  thousand  per- 
sons. 

Government  has  gone  in  for  housing,  building  farm- 
laborers'  cottages  in  Ireland,  municipal  lodging-houses  in 
Great  Britain,  tenement  blocks  in  London  and  Liverpool, 
and  developing  suburbs.  As  I  show  in  the  report  of  the 
Land  Inquiry  committee,  there  is  beginning  a  vast  ex- 
tension of  governmental  rural  cottage  building,  which  will 
provide  120,000  new  dwellings,  or  ten  per  cent,  of  the  pres- 
ent number. 

One-sixth  of  British  India  is  forest  reserve,  a  tract  of 
240,000  square  miles,  administered  by  the  Government  of 
India  for  the  public  benefit,  producing  a  net  revenue  of  ten 
million  dollars  a  year.  English  municipalities  are  begin- 
ning to  afforest  their  water-catchment  areas. 

880 


APPENDIX 

The  largest  farmer  in  the  United  Kingdom  is  the  Irish 
Government,  where  the  congested  districts  board  has  33,000 
rent-paying  tenants  and  an  average  of  a  quarter  of  a  mil- 
lion acres  under  its  administration  for  stock  and  sale  of 
produce. 

The  mines  in  the  United  Kingdom  have  been  under  pri- 
vate ownership.  But  the  Government  recently  took  over 
the  coal  mines  in  South  Wales,  and  this  is  probably  the 
first  step  in  the  nationalization  of  most  of  the  fields.  Ire- 
land's prosperity  will  leap  up  if  her  coal-deposits  are  freed. 

There  are  many  government  enterprises  in  manufactur- 
ing industry,  producing  the  articles  required  for  public  use, 
instead  of  purchasing  them  to  the  profit  of  private  concerns. 
The  municipality,  with  its  tramway  service,  erects  its  own 
works  and  car-sheds,  generates  its  electricity,  builds  and 
repairs  its  cars,  prints  its  tickets.  In  England  the  post- 
office  gets  the  bulk  of  its  mail-sacks  made  by  the  prison  de- 
partment. 

At  this  writing  the  British  Government  is  considering  tak- 
ing over  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  liquor,  which  will 
make  it  one  of  the  greatest  shopkeepers  in  the  world. 

In  the  face  of  this  summary  of  the  research  committee, 
it  is  theoretic  to  debate  about  the  principle  of  socialism 
versus  private  capitalism.  The  tendency  toward  public 
ownership  is  under  full  swing,  and  no  phrases  can  stop  it. 
The  committee  quotes  what  a  secretary  for  the  colonies, 
Lewis  Harcourt,  said: 

In  these  days,  the  Colonial  Office  has  more  the  attributes  of  an 
immense  trading  and  administrative  concern  than  those  of  earlier 
days,  when  it  was  a  mere  machine  of  Government.  I  am  a  coal 
and  tin  miner  in  Nigeria,  a  gold  miner  in  Guiana.  I  seek  timber 
in  one  colony,  oil  and  nuls  in  another,  cocoa  in  a  third — copra 
and  copal,  sisal  and  hemp,  cotton,  coffee,  tobacco  are  common  ob- 
jects of  my  daily  care.  .  .  .  My  days  and  nights  are  spent  in  the 

381 


APPENDIX 

study  of  medicine,  in  the  details  of  railway  construction,  with  a 
desire  that  the  smallest  sum  of  money  may  lay  the  largest  number 
of  miles  of  track  in  the  fewest  possible  days. 

Six  years  ago  the  census  showed  in  government  employ  in 
England  and  Wales  788,550  persons,  299,599  in  state  de- 
partments and  588,951  under  local  authorities.  It  is  rea- 
sonable to  estimate  that  in  the  United  Kingdom  over  one 
million  are  now  in  public  employment,  one-sixth  of  all 
gainfully  employed  persons.  The  Socialist  or  Labor  parties 
can  not  fully  claim  this  government  action  as  the  result  of 
their  propaganda.  The  bulk  of  this  socialist  enterprise  has 
been  initiated  and  carried  out  by  persons  of  the  aristocratic 
or  propertied  classes,  by  business  men  and  experts,  and 
middle-class  residents.  Men  like  Joseph  Chamberlain 
were  not  "out"  to  introduce  the  cooperative  commonwealth, 
though  unconsciously  they  have  hastened  its  coming.  The 
reasons  that  have  directly  led  to  this  spread  of  socialism 
show  that  the  consideration  in  the  creators  of  the  policy 
was  the  interest  of  the  community  as  a  whole  and  the  in- 
terest of  the  citizens  as  consumers.  The  test  of  the  policy 
is  not  by  theory,  but  by  practice  and  experience. 

In  four  great  fields  both  socialism  and  cooperation  are 
as  yet  largely  leaving  the  field  to  private  capital.  Those 
fields  are:  the  special  service  of  the  idle  rich,  much  of  in- 
ternational trade  and  its  finance,  the  unorganized  portion 
of  the  shipping  industry,  and  a  large  part  of  agriculture 
and  fishing.  And  yet  even  in  agriculture  the  coming  leg- 
islation is  leaning  heavily  toward  what  is  virtually  state  con- 
trol; and  in  fishing  the  Empire  Resources  Development  com- 
mittee are  putting  through  a  program  which  is  socialistic. 

State  and  municipal  ownership  and  management  now 
administer  in  the  United  Kingdom  seventy-five  hundred 
million  dollars  of  capital.  The  capital  thus  administered 


APPENDIX 

and  the  volume  of  business  thus  done  is  probably  a  hundred 
times  as  great  as  that  of  cooperation,  and  is  increasing  with 
giant  strides.  This  state  and  municipal  socialism  is  most 
successful  in  communication  and  transport,  land  improve- 
ment, sanitation,  and  public  health  service,  education  and 
recreation,  extraction  of  coal  and  other  minerals,  banking 
and  insurance,  manufacture  and  distribution  of  certain 
commodities,  and  the  construction  and  preparation  of  arti- 
cles required  in  the  public  service. 

The  enterprises  of  cooperation  and  of  state  and  municipal 
socialism  hardly  ever  compete  with  one  another  because 
their  spheres  are  distinct.  The  Cooperative  Society  pro- 
duces and  distributes  mainly  ordinary  household  supplies. 
Socialism  has  devoted  itself  to  commodities  and  services  un- 
suited  to  cooperation.  This  division  of  function  will  un- 
doubtedly long  continue. 

The  more  a  government  engages  in  industrial  functions  as 
•contrasted  with  functions  merely  of  police  and  national 
defense,  the  more  essentially  democratic  does  its  administra- 
tion tend  to  become.  But  as  yet,  parallel  with  what  we 
have  seen  in  cooperation,  the  humbler  grades  of  .employees 
in  state  and  municipal  service  have  as  little  influence  on  the 
management  of  their  department  and  are  as  much  governed 
from  above  as  if  they  were  in  capitalist  employment. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  comparison  with  joint-stock  cap- 
italism, government  management  of  industry  means  ulti- 
mately a  large  number  of  independent  employers  and  an 
increase  in  local  control.  And  this  because  in  practice  there 
is  a  rapid  growth  of  municipal  enterprises,  with  a  multipli- 
cation of  separate  employers.  Whereas  in  capitalist  enter- 
prise there  is  the  supremacy  of  the  national  trust  and 
combine,  such  as  Lord  Rhondda's  in  South  Wales,  over  pri- 
vate industry,  thus  lessening  the  number  of  employers. 

383 


\ 


APPENDIX 

The  extension  of  state  and  municipal  management  is  rap- 
idly proceeding,  and  its  potential  area  of  control  is  almost 
illimitable.  In  these  next  years  if  those  industries  and 
services  already  governmentally  administered  in  one  place 
or  another  are  generally  brought  under  public  administra- 
tion, the  aggregate  volume  of  state  and  municipal  socialism 
will  be  increased  probably  five-  or  six-fold.  Such  an  in- 
crease, without  adding  a  single  fresh  industry  or  service  to 
those  already  successfully  nationalized  or  municipalized 
in  one  country  or  another,  will  probably  bring  into  the 
service  of  national  and  local  government  an  actual  majority 
of  the  adult  population.  With  cooperation  developing  along 
its  own  lines,  the  combination  of  socialism  and  cooperation 
will  mean  that  probably  three-fourths  of  all  the  world's  in- 
dustrial capital  will  be  under  collective  or  non-capitalistic 
administration. 

Certain  activities  will  long  remain  outside  this  extension 
of  collective  enterprise:  certain  branches  of  agriculture, 
art,  invention,  new  markets,  new  individual  enterprises. 
The  future  organization  of  industry  and  the  state  will  there- 
fore include  more  than  one  form  of  control.  There  is  need 
to  secure  for  persons  employed  in  cooperation,  in  govern- 
ment enterprise,  and  in  private  enterprise  some  real  control 
over  their  own  working  lives.  With  that  method  of  control 
I  have  dealt  in  the  chapter  on  "The  Discovery."  There  is 
need,  also,  to  secure  for  the  users  and  consumers  of  par- 
ticular products  and  services  some  real  power  of  influencing 
their  production  otherwise  than  by  Parliament  and  the 
town  council. 

Such  are  the  conclusions  of  the  research  committee,  which 
I  have  reproduced  largely  in  their  own  words.  Out  of  it 
all  emerges  the  outline  of  the  coming  England,  of  social- 
ism, cooperation,  syndicalism,  big  business,  private  property. 

384 


APPENDIX 

WORKSHOP  COUNCILS 

"Carels  Freres"  in  Ghent,  Belgium,  had  instituted  a  works 
committee  before  the  war  came.  Questions  of  hours,  piece 
rates,  and  discipline  were  dealt  with.  The  disputes  ceased, 
production  increased,  and  higher  wages  were  paid. 

WORKERS'  CONTROL 

The  Garton  Foundation,  of  which  Mr.  Balfour,  the  Vis- 
count Esher  and  Sir  Richard  Garton  are  the  trustees,  has 
made  a  careful  investigation  of  industrial  conditions: 

Many  of  the  men  who  return  from  the  trenches  to  the  great 
munition  and  shipbuilding  centers  are,  within  a  few  weeks  of  their 
return,  among  those  who  exhibit  most  actively  their  discontent  with 
present  conditions.  Among  those  who  have  fought  in  Flanders 
or  who  have  been  employed  in  making  shells  at  home,  there  are 
many  who  look  forward  to  a  great  social  upheaval  following  the 
war.  It  is  the  testimony  of  responsible  observers  on  the  spot  that 
some  of  our  greatest  industrial  centers  are  even  now  in  a  state  of 
incipient  revolt.  To  a  very  large  number  of  the  men  now  in  the 
ranks,  the  fight  against  Germany  is  a  fight  against  "Prussianism," 
and  the  spirit  of  Prussianism  represents  to  them  only  an  extreme 
example  of  that  to  which  they  object  in  the  industrial  and  social 
institutions  of  their  own  country.  They  regard  the  present  strug- 
gle as  closely  connected  with  the  campaign  against  capitalist  and 
class-domination  at  home. 

Unfortunately  some  of  the  results  of  the  war  Itself,  such  as  the 
Munitions  Act  and  the  Compulsion  Acts,  have  intensified  this 
identification  of  external  and  internal  "enemies."  We  are  not 
discussing  the  necessity  of  these  measures.  The  point  is  that  the 
working  of  these  Acts  and  the  Tribunals  created  under  them  has 
given  rise  to  an  amount  of  deep  and  widespread  resentment  which 
is  the  more  dangerous  because  it  is  largely  inarticulate.  It  is 
particularly  dangerous  because  it  tends  to  discredit  in  general 
working  class  opinion  that  section  of  Labor  which  looks  to  the 
improvement  of  industrial  conditions  by  negotiation  or  by  legisla- 
tive action,  and  to  strengthen  the  hands  of  the  party  which 
preaches  doctrines  of  wrecking  and  appropriation. 

385 


APPENDIX 

The  war  has  not  put  an  end  to  industrial  unrest.  Every  one 
of  the  old  causes  of  dispute  remains,  and  others  of  a  more 
serious  nature  have  been  added  in  the  course  of  the  war.  The 
very  moderation  and  unselfishness  shown  by  the  responsible  lead- 
ers of  Organized  Labor  are  looked  upon  by  important  sections 
of  their  following  as  a  betrayal  of  the  cause  and  by  some  employers 
as  a  tactical  opportunity. 

The  employers  know  nothing  of  the  effect  of  a  new 
process  on  the  nervous  system  of  the  worker.  They  know 
nothing  of  the  fatigue  from  overwork  or  monotony.  They 
make  no  study  of  a  standard  of  living.  They  go  blindly 
ahead,  as  if  men  and  machinery,  alike,  were  tools  to  be 
manipulated.  That  an  aim  of  industry  should  be  a  good 
life  for  the  worker  is  an  idea  which  would  sound  strangely 
in  the  ears.  The  workers  understand  nothing  of  overhead 
charges,  depreciation  of  plant,  the  risks  of  capital.  They 
know  nothing  of  the  policy  connected  with  buying  and 
selling. 

Consider  the  analysis  Sir  Hugh  Bell  has  recently  made 
of  his  own  costs,  as  given  in  the  "Round  Table"  for  Sep- 
tember, 1916: 

His  firm  makes  steel,  the  raw  materials  for  which  are  produced 
from  his  own  coal  and  iron  mines  and  limestone  quarries.  In 
every  ton  of  steel  made  70  to  75  per  cent,  of  the  cost  goes  as  the 
wages  of  labor.  There  remains  25  to  30  per  cent,  for  all  other 
outgoings,  including  profit.  The  turnover  on  a  steel  business  in 
this  country  about  equals  the  capital  invested.  If  this  profit 
amounts  to  10  per  cent.,  of  which  3  per  cent,  at  least  must  go 
back  into  the  business  to  maintain  the  works,  he  thinks  himself 
lucky,  and  the  7  per  cent,  left  must  cover  interest  on  his  capital 
as  well  as  the  profits  for  his  enterprise  and  risk.  The  remaining 
15  to  20  per  cent,  goes  to  cover  rates  and  taxes,  railway  freights 
and  so  forth,  part  of  which  again  goes  to  labor. 

Out  of  what  fund,  as  Sir  Hugh  Bell  asks,  is  he  to  pay  a  10  per 
cent,  increase  in  wages?  If  he  paid  10  per  cent,  more,  he  would 
have  no  profit  at  all  and  could  not  continue  the  business.  The 
increase  in  wages,  then,  can  only  come  from  within,  by  greater 

386 


APPENDIX 

efficiency  in  management  or  greater  production  per  man.  There 
are,  no  doubt,  many  businesses  which  have  some  monopoly  value, 
where  capital  secures  a  greater  return;  there  are  others  where 
the  return  is  less  and  the  business  is  decaying.  But  except  when 
abnormal  conditions  arise,  as  with  shipping  now,  or  when  a 
monopoly  or  a  patent  exists,  the  picture  given  by  Sir  Hugh  Bell 
is  more  or  less  applicable  to  industry  in  general. 

No  paper  resolution,  no  legislation,  and  no  economic  the- 
ory can  alter  the  facts  of  the  industrial  situation.  But  an 
adjustment  and  a  gain  can  be  made  by  a  new  release  of 
productive  energy  on  the  part  of  the  management  and  the 
men,  by  consultation  between  labor  and  capital,  and  by 
hard  intellectual  effort  put  on  each  detail  of  both  the  in- 
dustrial process  and  the  industrial  relationship. 

Labor  is  going  to  demand  higher  wages.  To  obtain  them, 
labor  must  produce  more  goods,  and  the  employer  must 
improve  his  methods,  instal  new  machinery,  and  consult  the 
worker.  Some  employers  will  meet  the  situation  with  su- 
perlatively good  management — a  management  that  will  wel- 
come the  worker  to  a  share  in  control,  and  will  increase  pro- 
duction and  wages  without  financial  loss.  Some  employers 
will  make  decreased  profits,  some  will  go  to  the  wall,  and 
some  will  fight  the  new  conditions.  If  wisdom  prevails  on 
both  sides,  a  new  constitution  of  industry  will  be  achieved. 

AUDITING  WAGES  AND  PROFITS 

The  whole  wage  question  will  become  increasingly  a  mat- 
ter for  expert  accountants.  This  will  mean  a  j  oint  audit  of 
costs,  presented  by  management  and  men,  and  determined 
by  the  state.  In  the  South  Wales  coal-field  the  figures  as 
presented  by  the  federation  executive,  after  the  cost  of 
standard  labor  and  stores  and  other  costs  of  production  have 
been  deducted,  show: 

387 


APPENDIX 

Period  Wages  Profits 

From  April,  1910,  to  June,  1915 67.00  (percent.) 9.67 

"      July,    1915,   to    June,    1916 61.79     "         "      16.35 

Quarter  ended   June  30,   1916 56.46     "         "      24.05 

The  owners  reply  that  the  rise  in  the  cost  of  production 
has  kept  even  with  the  rise  in  selling  price.  They  instance 
the  prices  of  pit  wood,  rails,  and  colliery  stores,  in  addition 
to  a  succession  of  wage  increases. 

Obviously  this  is  not  a  question  for  frenzied  rhetoric, 
but  for  expert  analysis.  One  wonders  if,  as  we  approach 
the  minimum  wage  in  legislation,  we  are  approaching  the 
maximum  return  permitted  to  capital.  To  make  this  clear: 
will  the  state  lay  down  a  minimum  wage  of  thirty-six  shil- 
lings for  the  worker,  and  a  prohibition  for  capital  of  any- 
thing over  ten  per  cent.? 

THE  TIE  VOTE 

The  present  proposals  for  workers'  control  through  work- 
shop councils  leave  the  final  vote  on  a  tie  with  the  man- 
agement. The  workers,  sitting  as  council  members  with 
the  managers  of  the  industry,  will  become  partners  instead 
of  wage  hands  in  the  business.  They  will  be  "junior  part- 
ners" at  first.  The  extent  of  their  control  will  be  deter- 
mined by  their  ability  and  their  self-conscious  power  as  a 
class. 

HOUSING 

In  the  city  of  Stanley,  England,  "  overcrowding  is  found 
to  exist  in  50  per  cent,  of  the  houses.  It  can  hardly  be 
doubted  that  the  existence  of  overcrowding  on  so  serious 
a  scale  is  one  of  the  chief  factors  which  gives  rise  to  such 
a  high  infantile  mortality  as  is  found  in  Stanley,  namely 
169  per  one  thousand  births."  So  says  the  authoritative 

388 


APPENDIX 

investigation  "Livelihood  and  Poverty — A  Study  of  Work- 
ing Class  Households  in  Northampton,  Warrington,  Stan- 
ley and  Reading"  (1915). 
And  it  goes  on  to  report: 

One-half  of  the  households  below  the  poverty  line  at  Warring- 
ton  and  Reading,  nearly  one-half  at  York,  and  one-third  at  North- 
ampton, were  living  in  poverty  because  the  wages  of  the  head  of 
the  household  were  so  low  that  he  could  not  support  a  family  of 
three  children  or  less.  A  great  part  of  the  poverty  revealed  by 
our  inquiries  is  not  intermittent  but  permanent,  not  accidental  or 
due  to  exceptional  misfortune,  but  a  regular  feature  of  the  in- 
dustries of  the  towns  concerned.  Of  all  the  causes  of  primary 
poverty  which  have  been  brought  to  our  notice,  low  wages  are 
by  far  the  most  important.  To  raise  the  wages  of  the  worst  paid 
workers  is  the  most  pressing  social  task  with  which  the  country 
is  confronted  to-day. 

Tn  Northampton  nearly  13  per  cent,  and  in  Reading  15  per  cent, 
earn  less  than  20  shillings.  In  four  out  of  five  of  the  towns,  more 
than  one  quarter,  and  in  two  out  of  five  towns,  more  than  one-third 
of  the  adult  male  workers  were  earning  less  than  24  shillings  per 
week. 

Sixty  years  ago,  the  population  of  England  and  Wales 
was  evenly  divided  between  town  and  country  dwellers. 
Now  four  out  of  every  five  persons  are  living  in  the  towns, 
and  only  one  out  of  five  in  the  country.  Turning  to  rural 
conditions,  as  described  in  the  investigation  "How  the  La- 
borer Lives,"  we  find: 

Seventy  per  cent,  of  the  agricultural  workers  in  England  and 
Wales  are  paid  laborers,  having  no  direct  financial  interest  in  the 
success  or  otherwise  of  the  work  in  which  they  are  engaged,  and 
only  30  per  cent,  farmers,  small  holders,  or  members  of  their 
families.  This  is  a  serious  fact,  for  probably  in  no  other  Eu- 
ropean country  is  there  so  high  a  proportion  of  agricultural  work- 
ers who  are  "divorced  from  the  soil."  In  1907  the  weekly  earnings 
of  ordinary  agricultural  laborers  in  England  averaged  17  shillings 

389 


APPENDIX 

6  pence.  It  may  be  taken  as  an  established  fact  that  a  family 
of  five  persons  whose  total  income  does  not  exceed  20  shillings  6 
pence,  and  whose  rent  is  two  shillings,  is  living  below  the  "pov- 
erty line."  If  we  now  turn  to  the  actual  wages  of  ordinary  ag- 
ricultural laborers  we  find  that  with  five  exceptions,  the  average 
earnings  in  every  county  of  England  and  Wales  are  below  it. 
The  real  wages  of  agricultural  laborers  have  actually  diminished 
since  1900. 

Let  the  reader  try  for  a  moment  to  realize  what  this  means. 
It  means  that  from  the  point  of  view  of  judicious  expenditure, 
the  be  all  and  end  all  of  life  should  be  physical  efficiency.  It 
means  that  people  have  no  right  to  keep  in  touch  with  the  great 
world  outside  the  village  by  so  much  as  taking  in  a  weekly  news- 
paper. It  means  that  a  wise  mother,  when  she  is  tempted  to  buy 
her  children  a  pennyworth  of  cheap  oranges,  will  devote  the  penny 
to  flour  instead.  It  means  that  the  temptation  to  take  the  shortest 
railway  journey  should  be  strongly  resisted.  It  seems  that  toys 
and  dolls  and  picture  books,  even  of  the  cheapest  quality,  should 
never  be  purchased;  that  birthdays  should  be  practically  indis- 
tinguishable from  other  days.  It  means  that  every  natural  long- 
ing for  pleasure  or  variety  should  be  ignored  or  set  aside.  It 
means,  in  short,  a  life  without  color,  space,  or  atmosphere,  that 
stifles  and  hems  in  the  laborer's  soul  as  in  too  many  cases  his 
cottage  does  his  body. 

The  motto  of  one  of  the  villagers  is  given:  "We  don't 
live,  we  linger."  And  yet,  with  these  appalling  conditions 
of  primary  poverty  in  city  and  country,  it  is  true  that  "there 
has  been  an  enormous  improvement  in  the  conditions  of  the 
industrial  population  in  Britain  during  the  last  sixty  or 
seventy  years.  There  is  a  residuum  of  the  population  liv- 
ing on  the  margin  of  subsistence,  whose  lot  could  not  have 
been  much  worse  in  1830  than  it  is  now.  It  is  possible  that 
the  size  of  this  residuum  is  as  large,  or  even  larger,  now 
than  seventy  years  ago,  but  it  bears  a  smaller  proportion 
to  the  total  population." 

390 


APPENDIX 

LIGHT  RAILWAYS 

Belgium  has  22.8  miles  of  light  railway  to  every  100 
square  miles  of  territory.  Great  Britain  has  .37  of  1  mile 
to  every  100  square  miles.  That  is,  Belgium  has  38  and 
one-half  times  as  many  miles  of  light  railway  in  proportion 
to  her  total  area  as  Great  Britain.  This  means  not  only 
more  agriculturists,  but  it  means  that  mere  industrial 
workers  can  and  do  live  on  the  land,  instead  of  in  the  slums 
of  cities.  Twenty-three  per  cent,  of  the  occupied  persons 
in  Belgium  are  engaged  in  agriculture,  but  56  per  cent,  of 
the  whole  population  live  in  rural  and  only  44  per  cent,  in 
urban  communes.  "Everywhere  in  traveling  through  Bel- 
gium one  hears  of  tracts  of  land  opened  up  to  profitable 
agriculture  or  commerce  by  means  of  the  light  railways." 
The  extraordinary  development  of  agriculture  is  to  no  small 
extent  due  to  these  facilities  for  the  transport  of  produce 
in  bulk  and  in  small  quantities.  A  thorough  study  of  this 
system  of  light  railways  has  been  made  by  Seebohm  Rown- 
tree  in  "Land  and  Labor — Lessons  from  Belgium."  He 
summarizes  a  detailed  consideration  as  follows: 

In  comparison  with  her  size,  Belgium  has  the  most  extensive 
system  of  main  and  light  railways  and  canals  in  the  world.  Al- 
most all  her  main  railways  are  national  property,  and  she  is 
financing  her  light  railways  so  cleverly  that  they  will  become  pub- 
lic property  at  the  end  of  a  certain  number  of  years,  without  any 
appreciable  cost  to  the  public  purse.  She  has  frankly  recognized 
that  light  railways  cannot  do  more  than  just  pay  their  way,  and 
will  never  show  so  high  a  return  upon  capital  as  to  induce  capital- 
ists to  choose  them  in  preference  to  other  industrial  investments. 
If  economically  managed,  however,  they  can  be  run  practically 
without  loss,  and  they  are  of  inestimable  value  in  opening  up 
country  districts  and  developing  agriculture.  Indeed,  it  may  be 
said  that  small  holdings  cannot  be  made  fully  successful  without 

391 


APPENDIX 

such  means  of  cheap  and  rapid  transport  as  light  railways  afford. 
Canals,  which  are  almost  all  national  property  in  Belgium,  are 
looked  upon  as  high  roads,  and  the  State  is  satisfied  if  the  very  low 
charges  made  for  their  use  cover,  or  almost  cover,  the  cost  of 
upkeep.  The  very  low  rates  charged  for  the  transport  of  goods 
both  on  railways  and  canals  are  a  great  benefit  to  industry  as 
well  as  agriculture,  and  the  extraordinary  cheapness  of  the  work- 
men's tickets  upon  the  railways  has  economic  effects  of  a  far- 
reaching  character — among  others  it  facilitates  decentralization 
of  population  and  industries,  and  thus  largely  destroys  the 
monopoly  of  landowners  in  towns. 

CHURCH  ATTENDANCE 

In  the  midweek  of  November,  1916,  this  advertisement 
appeared  in  the  "Guardian": 

The  LIVING  of  Catherston  Leweston,  near  Charmouth,  Dorset, 
is  VACANT.  The  adult  inhabitants  of  the  parish  are  22,  the 
full  value  of  the  living  £75;  value  last  year  £67  17s.  Healthy, 
southern  locality,  near  the  sea.  No  rectory-house. 

A  few  years  ago,  the  "Daily  News"  made  a  census  of 
London  churches.  At  that  time  the  number  of  City 
Churches  connected  with  the  Established  Church  was  45. 
The  attendances  at  all  these  churches  on  Sunday  morning 
was  4,634.  At  St.  Alban's,  there  were  IS  persons  present, 
of  whom  six  were  children.  St.  Mildred's  had  14.  In  the 
morning,  St.  Alphege  had  37,  of  whom  21  were  children. 
In  the  evening,  37  came,  but  one  child  was  unable  to  come, 
and  an  additional  woman  attended,  and  saved  the  average. 
Of  the  total  45  churches,  eight  had  attendances  of  over 
100  in  the  morning. 

In  one  Noncomformist  Congregational  Church,  the  City 
Temple,  there  were  3,4€3  persons  in  the  congregation,  as 
compared  to  4,634  persons  in  all  the  45  churches  of  the 
Established  Church.  It  is  doubtful  if  the  community  will 
permanently  carry  that  burden  of  expense  for  a  venerable 
state  institution. 

392 


APPENDIX 

MONEY  OR  EDUCATION 

The  labor  exchanges  are  constantly  thrown  against  hu- 
man problems.  One  of  their  executives  told  me  of  being 
forced  to  decide  whether  to  send  a  lad  fourteen  years  old, 
in  poverty,  into  a  fairly  well-paid  job,  which  will  prove 
after  a  couple  of  years  only  a  "blind  alley,"  or  to  put  him 
into  a  trade  which  will  give  him  a  low  wage,  but  train  him 
for  a  life-job.  It  is  easy  to  decide  on  a  "general  principle," 
but  what  is  the  answer  when  one  studies  the  living  condi- 
tions of  the  boy  and  his  family? 

WOMEN  IN  INDUSTRY 

Women  in  industry  have  opened  many  questions.  Are 
they,  for  instance,  willing  to  undergo  a  long  industrial 
training  from  which  they  will  be  graduated  skilled  workers  ? 
One  investigator  states  that  in  dressmaking  materials  they 
are  ignorant  of  texture  and  fabric,  "  though  these  would 
seem  to  form  a  subject  matter  peculiarly  fitted  to  their 
tastes.  It  is  men  who  occupy  the  higher  positions  in  this  de- 
partment because  they  have  cared  to  fit  themselves  by  a 
course  of  study." 

Miss  Proud  in  her  book  on  "Welfare  Work"  reports : 

There  is  a  tendency  for  women  to  feed  the  machines  which 
men  control ;  that  is  to  say,  women's  work  is  apt  to  become  mechan- 
ical and  low-priced,  therefore  uninspiring  and  inefficient.  .  .  . 
Women  are  inferiors  in  the  industrial  world  because  they  have 
not  decided  (except  individually)  that  they  desire  to  be  other- 
wise, or  at  least  that  they  desire  to  pay  in  training  the  price  of 
efficiency. 

If  they  remain  untrained,  they  remain  unskilled,  and  can 
not  receive  the  wages  of  skilled  labor.  Are  they  to  form  a 
great  new  proletarian  mass  of  unskilled  labor,  with  low 

393 


APPENDIX 

wages,  while  men  workers  direct  them  and  receive  a  higher 
wage?  Will  such  a  division,  growing  ever  sharper,  answer 
the  woman's  craving  for  equality,  which  is  one  of  the  main 
impulses  of  the  woman's  movement?  Will  a  system  of  wage 
slavery,  with  men  eternally  in  the  position  of  boss,  fore- 
man, and  superintendent,  seem  a  fuller  life  than  the  home? 

Factory  inspectors  and  employers  state  that  the  girl  up 
to  the  age  of  twenty-five  often  has  her  mind  only  half  on 
her  work  and  the  other  half  on  her  prospects  of  marriage. 
The  evening  is  to  her  the  most  valuable  part  of  the  day, 
because  she  then  becomes  a  social  being.  In  a  large  and 
exceptionally  healthful  factory  the  women  left  at  about 
twenty-five  years  of  age. 

"Their  evenings,"  said  the  manager,  "have  ceased  to  be 
matters  of  first-rate  importance  to  them,  and  they  do  not 
mind  entering  domestic  service." 

Miss  Proud  summarizes  this  sort  of  report,  of  which 
there  were  many: 

The  suggestion  is  that  women,  as  a  rule,  do  not  give  themselves 
unreservedly  to  their  work  until  they  no  longer  anticipate  giving 
themselves  in  their  offspring. 

Psychological  facts  like  these  leave  us  with  few  of  the 
old-time  catch  phrases  such  as  "Equal  pay  for  equal  work." 

WOMEN  AND  POPULATION 

Adelyne  More  in  her  excellent  pamphlet  "Fecundity  ver- 
sus Civilization"  has  collected  extracts  from  a  wide  read- 
ing of  recent  discussions  on  Birth  Control.  She  quotes  from 
Frau  Stritt,  president  of  the  Woman  Suffrage  Union  of 
Germany,  who  occupies  a  position  in  the  German  suffrage 
movement  similar  to  that  held  by  Mrs.  Fawcett  in  Eng- 
land. Frau  Stritt  writes: 

394 


APPENDIX 

This  question  (the  responsibility  of  women  for  their  lives  as 
mothers)  involves  for  all  those  who  have  learned  to  think  things  to 
their  conclusion  the  real  innermost  core  of  the  woman  question. 
Thus  in  a  certain  sense  the  population  question  is  to  be  regarded 
as  the  woman  question, 

and  Frau  Stritt  quotes  from  Dr.  Rutgers : 

Through  physiological  knowledge  the  woman  has  again  come 
to  be  the  mistress  of  her  own  body  and  of  her  own  fate. 

I  am  seeking  to  record  tendencies,  not  to  offer  special 
pleas  for  theories  in  this  profoundly  important  matter  of 
population,  the  solution  of  which  will  determine  economic 
basis,  social  structure,  and  foreign  policy.  It  is  probably 
the  most  significant  single  step  the  race  has  ever  taken  in 
the  control  of  environment.  And  it  will  be  with  this  as 
with  other  extensions  of  that  control.  It  will  alter  human 
relationships.  Children — "that  is  the  indispensable  condi- 
tion both  for  military  and  industrial  success,"  says  Nau- 
mann:  food  for  powder  and  food  for  factories.  The  fact 
that  such  advocacy  still  exists  must  be  faced  by  those  who 
would  blithely  cut  down  the  number  of  the  western  democ- 
racies. 

Adelyne  More  sees  the  two  problems. 

(1)  Birth-control   must   be   practised   in   the   slum.    Until   the 
lower  class  restricts,  our  civilization  is  being  replenished  by  the 
feeble-minded  and  the  diseased. 

(2)  The  militaristic  nations  must  practise  birth-control  or  they 
will  over-run  the  democracies. 

She  quotes  from  Alfred  Naquet: 

If  the  individuals  who  compose  the  nation  wish  to  progress,  to 
develop,  to  live;  if,  in  order  to  attain  this  truly  human  ideal,  they 
depart  from  the  instinctive  habits  of  the  non-human  animal;  if  they 
limit  their  offspring  in  order  to  raise  themselves  in  dignity,  in 
wealth,  in  intellectual  power;  to  overcome  the  perils  in  which 

395 


APPENDIX 

organic  nature  abounds,  and  to  investigate  the  secrets  of  nature 
— then  their  country  will  be  vanquished,  invaded,  spoiled  of  its 
wealth,  and  their  children  ruined  and  reduced  to  partial  slavery. 

Sir  John  Halliday  Groom,  Professor  of  Midwifery  in  the 
University  of  Edinburgh,  writes: 

The  falling  birth-rate  is  due  to  many  complex  causes,  but  a  great 
many  of  the  voluntarily  sterile  marriages  are  due  to  the  fear  and 
dread  which  women  have  of  child-bearing.  This,  so  far  as  my 
personal  experience  is  concerned,  is  a  growing  dread,  and  I  feel 
sure  is  one  of  the  many  causes  giving  rise  to  the  falling  birth- 
rate. Now,  if  a  knowledge  of  Twilight  Sleep  were  to  become 
generally  known  amongst  women,  it  would  do  a  great  deal  to 
abrogate  the  first  curse,  and  so  relieve  their  minds  of  an  over- 
powering dread. 

Sidney  Webb  wrote,  a  few  years  ago : 

Twenty-five  per  cent,  of  our  parents  is  producing  50  per  cent, 
of  the  next  generation.  .  .  .  The  ultimate  future  of  these  islands 
may  be  to  the  Chinese! 

This  year  Dean  Inge  notes  the  tendency  towards  what 
I  may  call  industrial  celibacy,  which  he  summarizes: 

In  all  trades  where  the  women  work  for  wages  the  birth-rate 
has  fallen  sharply. 

This  restriction  would  tend  to  separate  women  into 
classes,  of  which  we  have  an  instance  in  the  Athenian  City- 
State,  where  there  was  a  class  of  sterile  intellectual  alien 
women,  in  sharp  distinction  to  the  mothers  of  the  race. 
We  read  in  "The  Greek  Commonwealth" : 

Women  tended  to  become  crystallized  into  two  separate  types 
— the  household  matron  under  the  tutelage  of  a  husband  or  some 
other  male  protector,  and  the  independent  professional  woman, 
who  had  indeed  her  "guardian"  as  Athenian  law  demanded,  but 
kept  him  for  occasional  use,  as  we  keep  our  solicitors. 

396 


APPENDIX 

These  professional  women  were  wool-workers  and  mar- 
ket-women or  retailers. 

But  the  chief  and  most  conspicuous  profession  open  to  an  alien- 
born  woman  in  a  Greek  city  was  to  be  what  was  known  as  a 
"companion."  It  was  "companions,"  not  marriageable  girls,  whom 
the  young  Athenian  encountered  in  mixed  gatherings,  in  attendance, 
perhaps,  on  some  of  the  most  refined  and  distinguished  men  of  the 
day;  for  it  was  by  contributing  to  the  success  of  these  parties, 
from  which  the  native-born  woman  was  rigidly  excluded,  that 
they  earned  their  livelihood.  "We  have  companions  for  the  sake 
of  pleasure,"  says  Demosthenes,  making  a  clear  distinction  in 
which  there  is"  no  hint  of  overlapping,  "and  wives  to  bear  us  law- 
ful offspring  and  be  faithful  guardians  of  our  houses." 

Though  Athens  had  no  Shakespeare  to  help  us  to  understand 
them  they  must  often  have  felt  as  lonely  and  as  sad  at  heart  as 
the  poor  Fool.  If  they  had  been  allowed  the  support  of  their 
secluded  sisters  who  could  only  watch  them  wistfully  from  their 
windows,  as  they  mingled  with  the  men  in  the  streets  and  in  the 
market-place,  they  might  have  set  the  intercourse  of  the  sexes, 
for  the  first  time  in  history,  on  an  intelligent  basis,  and  saved 
the  memory  of  Athens  from  a  reproach  of  which  it  is  not  possible 
to  clear  her. 

The  suggestion  of  a  woman's  sex  strike  is  dealt  with  by 
Aristophanes  in  his  Lysistrata.  "Athens  witnessed  the  rise 
of  a  movement  for  the  emancipation  of  woman."  Euripides 
expressed  the  "war-cry"  of  suffering  woman,  and  their  re- 
volt from  the  "hard  hating  voices."  But  their  bitterness 
did  not  avail,  because  organizing  social  thought  had  not 
arrived  at  the  solution.  To-day  the  effort  is  renewed  to 
give  expression  to  the  various  and  complex  dispositions 
of  millions  of  individual  women.  War  and  the  strife 
of  labor  and  capital  are  surface  ripples  compared  with 
the  immense  instinctive  forces  let  loose  by  this  effort. 
Governments  and  trade-unions  will  be  broken  if  they  op- 
pose it. 

397 


APPENDIX 

CLOTHES 

At  the  meeting  of  shareholders  of  the  Fore  Street  Ware- 
house Company  a  net  profit  for  the  year  1916  of  $315,000 
was  announced.  In  1914  the  profit  was  $140,000.  The 
chairman,  in  explaining  the  prosperity  of  this  wholesale 
drapery  company,  said  that  "there  were  many  women  who 
for  one  reason  or  another  had  now  more  money  to  spend  on 
surplus  requirements  than  they  had  had  at  any  previous 
time,  and  whose  first  and  natural  desire  was  to  replenish 
their  wardrobes." 

The  fact  that  drapery  houses  generally  experienced  a 
profitable  year  in  1916  is  shown  by  the  reports  of  the 
firms.  Messrs.  J.  F.  &  H.  Roberts,  a  Manchester  house, 
record  a  net  profit  of  £42,220  or  £24,000  more  than  three 
years  previously.  Messrs.  Hunter,  Barr  &.  Co.  of  Glasgow 
announce  an  improvement  of  fifty  per  cent,  on  1913,  the 
net  profit  for  last  year  being  £32,488.  In  the  case  of 
Messrs.  John  Howell  &  Co.  the  figure  for  last  year  was 
£42,158  against  £10,580  in  1913.  This  is  the  highest 
result  in  the  forty-six  years'  history  of  this  company,  and 
is  nine  times  better  than  four  years  ago.  Messrs.  Pawsons 
&  Leafs  record  an  advance  from  £7,639  to  £35,853  in  the 
three  years.  Messrs.  Foster,  Porter  &  Co.  of  Wood  Street 
also  announce  profits  nearly  three-and-a-half  times  those 
for  the  last  year  of  peace,  though  in  this  case  additional 
capital  has  been  called  up  during  the  interval.  The  profit 
for  1916  was  £49,188.  Messrs.  Alliston  &  Co.  have  turned 
a  loss  of  £6,406  in  1913  into  a  profit  of  £11,156  last  year. 

Balancing  this  increased  expenditure,  we  have  many 
thousands  of  cases,  of  which  Mrs.  Pember  Reeves  has  col- 
lected examples  such  as  the  following: 

398 


APPENDIX 

Mrs.  P.  whose  husband  is  a  railway  man,  used  to  get  27  shillings 
before  the  war,  and  now  has  33  shillings.  She  has  a  new  baby, 
which  brings  the  number  of  her  children  up  to  five.  Her  rent  for 
three  rooms  was  7  shillings;  it  is  now  8  shillings  for  four  rooms. 
She  always  paid  a  shilling  a  week  each  to  a  clothing  and  a  boot 
club,  and  this  she  continues  to  do.  Her  "gramophone"  ("the 
women  are  all  buying  a  piano  or  gramophone")  appears  to  be 
that  she  now  buys  twelves  loaves  a  week  instead  of  seven,  and 
pays  four  shillings  instead  of  1  shilling  5y2  pence  for  it.  Her  coal 
costs  her  10%  pence  more,  her  meat  2  shillings  more,  her  tea  5 
pence,  her  potatoes  6  pence,  and  the  rest  of  her  expenditure  is 
about  1  shilling  10  pence  higher  than  it  was  before  the  war.  She 
is  getting  six  shillings  more,  but  the  items  just  quoted  show  that  on 
them  alone  she  is  spending  over  eight  shillings  more  than  she  used 
to  do.  She,  therefore,  has  ceased  to  buy  fish,  bacon,  eggs,  cocoa, 
jam,  and  cow's  milk  altogether,  and  buys  less  quantities  of  pot- 
herbs, margarine,  and  sugar. 

TRADE  UNIONS  AND  VOTES  FOR  WOMEN 

If  the  recommendations  of  the  Speaker's  Franchise  Con- 
ference are  carried  into  effect,  the  male  electorate  will 
number  nearly  11  million  out  of  a  manhood  of  12%  mil- 
lion. But  the  Speaker's  Conference  has  dodged  the  woman 
suffrage  question,  and,  instead  of  a  unanimous  finding,  they 
have  passed  on  the  onus  of  giving  women  the  vote  to  Par- 
liament. They  have  given  only  a  majority  vote  to  the 
"principle,  and  present  a  "proposal"  which  will  give  the 
suffrage  to  six  million  women  out  of  14  million.  In  short, 
they  have  "side-stepped,"  and  left  "Lloyd  George's  muni- 
tion girls"  who  "saved  the  nation"  to  win  the  vote  if  they 
can.  The  Woman's  Movement  in  Great  Britain  will  con- 
tinue to  be  in  part  political,  not  because  it  does  not  value 
the  human  implications  of  woman's  position  in  the  modern 
world,  but  because  it  believes  the  franchise  is  necessary  in 
order  to  achieve  those  higher  values.  The  insistence  on 
"Votes  for  Women"  has  wrongly  seemed  to  some  continen- 

399 


APPENDIX 

tal  critics  as  the  superficial  catch-phrase  of  women  who  had 
not  plumbed  the  meaning  of  feminism. 

Industrially,  working  women  face  the  same  situation  as 
politically.  The  fight  for  a  decent  standard  of  living  is 
only  in  its  beginning.  There  are  only  74,000  factories  and 
workshops  out  of  277,000  in  the  United  Kingdom  under 
regulations  or  Special  Rules.  At  Barking,  a  firm,  engaged 
in  the  manufacture  of  India  rubber  goods,  was  employing 
600  women.  Soon  after  the  outbreak  of  war,  the  firm 
announced  that  workers  in  the  Warping  shed  would  be  em- 
ployed if  they  signed  this  agreement:  "We,  the  under- 
signed, agree  to  work  without  a  Trade  Union."  The  man- 
ager said:  "I  will  have  no  woman  in  the  firm  who  belongs 
to  a  Trade  Union."  Eighty  of  the  women  belonging  to  the 
Warping  Department  refused  to  sign  the  paper.  The  ma- 
jority of  them  found  work  elsewhere. 

Certain  trade  unions  have  opened  their  membership  to 
women — the  Dockers'  Union  in  the  Transport  Workers' 
Federation,  some  of  the  unions  in  the  Federation  of  Fur- 
nishing Trades,  the  National  Union  of  Railwaymen,  and 
the  Railway  Clerks'  Association.  But  the  engineering 
trade — where  the  largest  movement  of  women  into  men's 
work  has  taken  place — has  not  made  up  its  mind,  and  has 
improvised  a  Speaker's  Conference  compromise  in  which 
women  are  enrolled  in  the  National  Federation  of  Women 
Workers,  by  arrangement  with  the  Amalgamated  Society  of 
Engineers.  About  40,000  women  have  been  so  organized 
out  of  500,000  women  munition  makers.  The  working 
woman's  place  is  either  the  sweat  shop  or  trade-union. 
As  J.  J.  Mallon,  who  has  long  mediated  in  wage  and  status 
disputes,  says: 

The  line  of  separation  between  skilled  and  unskilled  workmen  is 
shown  by  the  war  to  rest  on  little  more  than  a  convention,  and 

400 


APPENDIX 

the  craftsmen  realize  that  if  the  laborer  is  not  admitted  to  com- 
radeship all  their  privileges  are  insecure. 

And  that  line  of  separation  is  equally  a  convention  be- 
tween men  and  women. 

"The  Woman  Worker,"  the  organ  of  the  woman's  trade 
union  movement,  states: 

The  women  who  are  doing  very  well  are  those  who  have  had 
the  help,  not  merely  of  their  own  organizations,  but  of  the  great 
men's  unions.  The  Government  protection  of  wages  has  been 
given,  not  in  proportion  to  the  needs  of  the  workers,  or  to  their 
usefulness,  but  solely  in  proportion  to  the  strength  of  the  de- 
mand. 

And  it  instances  Newcastle,  where  there  are  6,000  women 
trade-union  members,  and  the  award  given  in  the  case  of 
Messrs.  Armstrong  Whitworth's  is  superior  to  others,  the 
time  rate  being  fixed  at  5  pence  an  hour,  with  special  rates 
for  gagers,  examiners,  and  danger  zone  workers. 

So,  in  the  next  five  years,  women  must  win  over  Govern- 
ment, the  men's  trade  unions,  and  the  employers. 

IRISH  RAILWAYS 

Irish  railways  were  investigated  a  few  years  ago  by  the 
British  Government.  Their  commissioners  found  that  the 
Irish  railway  problem  is  the  restriction  of  agriculture,  in- 
dustry and  trade  in  Ireland,  because  internal  and  export 
transit  rates  are  on  a  higher  scale  than  the  rates  charged 
for  conveyance  of  commodities  which  compete  with  Irish 
products  in  Irish  and  British  markets.  The  decadence  of 
Irish  industries  has  been  accelerated  by  the  establishment 
of  low  through  rates  from  British  manufacturers  to  Irish 
villages,  rates  which  have  been  much  lower  in  scale  than 
the  local  rates  from  Irish  cities  to  Irish  villages.  The 
British-controlled  Irish  railways  favored  the  British  manu- 

401 


APPENDIX 

facturer  at  the  expense  of  the  local  Irish  manufacturer. 
The  woolen  trade  and  the  textile  and  pottery  industries 
have  withered. 

But  not  only  have  through  import  rates  into  Ireland  for 
many  years  been  relatively  lower  than  the  Irish  internal 
rates,  but  also  through  rates  from  abroad  to  British  ports 
and  interior  centers  have /been  on  a  lower  scale  than  the 
export  rates  from  Ireland.  As  the  result  of  this,  not  only 
has  Irish  commercial  industry  been  strangled,  but  Irish 
agriculture  has  been  crippled.  Even  Ireland's  one  best 
agricultural  industry,  livestock,  expanded  only  about  16 
per  cent,  in  twenty  years,  and  the  cattle  trade  employs 
comparatively  little  labor.  In  eggs,  Russia  has  been  com- 
peting successfully  against  Ireland.  On  November  14, 
1916,  T.  W.  Russell,  vice-president  of  the  Department  of 
Agriculture,  stated  publicly  that  by  far  the  largest  pro- 
portion of  the  damage  done  in  transit  to  exported  eggs  took 
place  after  the  eggs  had  left  Ireland. 

Winter  dairying  would  be  stimulated  by  proper  railway 
facilities.  If  coals  came  to  Newcastle  from  Cologne  there 
would  be  prompt  action.  But  Danish  butter  came  into 
Limerick,  one  of  the  principal  centers  of  the  Irish  butter 
trade.  Irish  butter  is  not  to  be  had  throughout  the  year  in 
quantity  enough  for  home  consumption,  though  climate  and 
agricultural  conditions  of  Ireland  are  more  favorable  for 
winter  dairying  than  those  of  Denmark.  Better  methods  of 
production  and  a  reduction  of  railway  rates,  encouraging 
farmers  to  go  in  for  winter  dairying,  are  both  needed. 

The  classification  of  Irish  goods,  each  with  its  own  rate, 
is  confusing.  The  secretary  of  the  Cooperative  Movement 
stated  to  the  Railway  Commission  that  "the  influence  exer- 
cised over  Irish  railways  by  English  companies  is  a  bad 
influence,  a  growing  influence,  and  likely  to  grow  further." 

402 


APPENDIX 

The  Managing  Director  of  the  City  of  Dublin  Steam 
Packet  Company  asserted  that  the  London  and  North 
Western  Railway  Company  practically  controls  the  Irish 
railways,  and  that  a  company  like  his  own,  when  competing 
with  that  railway  company  across  the  Channel,  is  virtually 
powerless,  as  whatever  rates  it  agrees  to,  his  company  has 
to  agree  to  the  same. 

Just  as  Ireland  has  been  importing  food  when  she  could 
produce  it,  so  she  has  been  making  large  imports  in  coal 
when  she  has  extensive  coal  fields.  Here,  as  in  agriculture, 
railway  facilities  are  needed.  The  required  additional  cap- 
ital for  opening  certain  of  them  up  will  be  forthcoming  when 
the  requisite  railway  communication  is  provided.  This  is 
true  of  the  Castlecomer  and  the  Arigna  coal  fields.  Four 
miles  of  railway  will  release  the  Arigna  mines. 

Of  the  field  at  Coalisland,  E.  St.  John  Lyburn,  economic 
geologist  and  mineral  expert  to  the  Department,  said: 

The  prospector  would  require  $25,000  or  $50,000  for  trial  holes, 
and  the  field  can  be  developed  for  $1,500,000  or  $2,000,000.  There 
is  no  other  country  but  this  where  the  trial  would  not  have  been 
made  before  now.  There  are  about  60  million  tons  of  coal,  and 
that  can  be  multiplied  by  ten  or  one  hundred,  as  the  deposits 
are  revealed  by  the  scaling  of  the  trial  holes. 

In  this  one  instance,  it  is  capital  rather  than  railway 
facilities  that  are  required.  But  at  Wolf  Hill,  and  for  most 
of  Ireland;  the  primary  need  is  railway  facility.  Capital 
will  follow  opportunity.  The  condition  of  low  rates  and 
special  facilities  in  railway  transport  is  a  traffic  large  in 
volume,  regular  in  transmission,  and  presented  to  the  car- 
riers in  a  form  convenient  to  handle.  This  means  regu- 
larity of  supply,  a  volume  of  consignments,  good  packing 
of  produce,  cooperation  among  producers.  The  low  Con- 
tinental rates,  which  have  helped  to  capture  the  British 

403 


APPENDIX 

markets,  and  injure  Ireland,  are  also  due  in  many  instances 
to  the  cheapening  of  transport  by  Government  subsidy  and 
to  state  ownership  of  lines. 

While  I  was  in  Ireland,  the  Irish  railways  were  taken 
over  by  the  British  Government.  No  policy  has  yet  been 
announced.  A  broad  state  policy  in  tillage,  fertilizer, 
seeds,  machinery  and  a  unified  and  extended  railway  system 
will  bring  prosperity  to  Ireland.  If  that  Government  sub- 
sidy carries  with  it  the  power  over  Irish  taxation,  the  Irish 
people  will  probably  reject  the  policy.  In  that  event,  Ire- 
land herself  will  have  to  find  the  money  for  raising  her 
major  industry,  agriculture,  to  a  new  level.  In  either  case, 
the  time  has  come  for  a  momentous  decision,  on  which  rests 
the  welfare  of  the  next  fifty  years. 

IRISH  AGRICULTURE 

A  country,  whose  basic  industry  is  agriculture,  has  to 
import  its  food.  A  country,  made  up  of  farmers  and  under- 
populated, has  too  few  farms,  and  those  farms  too  small 
and  poor.  Such  is  the  heritage  left  to  Ireland  by  "British 
statesmanship"  like  that  of  Sir  Robert  Peel.  The  economic 
basis  of  Ireland  is  agriculture,  but  in  1915  it  was  forced  to 
import  bacon  and  hams  at  a  cost  of  $15,500,000,  butter 
$2,300,000,  oats  $750,000,  wheat  $20,000,000,  wheat  flour 
$18,500,000. 

T.  W.  Russell,  vice-president  of  the  Department  of  Agri- 
culture, says: 

Without  doubt  we  might  have  produced  every  shilling's  worth 
of  this  and  much  more  ourselves.  The  Government  at  the  present 
time  is  bringing  food  from  every  quarter  of  the  globe.  It  is 
doing  this  at  immense  cost  and  at  no  little  risk.  And  all  the 
while  there  are  several  millions  of  acres  in  Ireland  which  might 
be  tilled  with  profit  to  the  farmer  and  immense  advantage  to 
the  State. 


APPENDIX 

The  Department  of  Agriculture  states  that  there  is  every 
likelihood  that  next  season  the  supply  of  superphosphate 
will  not  equal  the  demand.  This  will  prevent  the  manuring 
of  grass  lands.  Some  thousands  of  tons  of  sulphate  of  cop- 
per was  exported,  not  for  military  purposes.  "It  was  taken 
from  Irish  agriculture,"  says  the  "Freeman's  Journal,"  "at 
a  time  of  its  sorest  need  and  sold  to  protect  agriculture  in 
other  countries.  Hence  there  was  only  a  limited  supply 
of  spraying  material  in  this  country  to  stem  the  ravages  of 
the  blight." 

It  was  sold  to  France  and  Italy  for  spraying  grapes. 

This  action  left  Irish  agriculturalists  with  practically  no  sul- 
phate for  the  spraying  of  potatoes.  That  is  the  cause  of  the 
failure  of  more  than  one-fourth  of  the  Irish  potato  crop  this 
year. 

Mr.  Runciman,  speaking  of  the  United  Kingdom,  said: 

Plowing  is  behindhand  not  only  because  many  horses  have  been 
put  out  of  action,  but  because  steam  carriage  is  lying  idle  in  con- 
sequence of  mechanics  having  been  so  freely  recruited  from  some 
of  the  big  agricultural  implement  makers. 

Irish  agriculture  has  been  crippled  at  the  very  crisis  when 
food  is  necessary  for  Great  Britain  to  win  the  war.  Sup- 
plies of  seed,  fertilizer,  imported  food-stuffs,  and  agricul- 
tural and  dairy  machinery,  are  shortened  when  they  ought 
to  be  greatly  extended. 

An  important  study  of  Irish  agriculture  has  recently  been 
made  by  an  expert  whom  I  know,  who  signs  himself  "Agri- 
cola."  I  am  not  at  liberty  to  publish  his  name.  One  of 
the  high  officials  of  the  British  Government  in  Ireland 
recommended  these  articles  to  me  as  giving  a  just  picture 
of  conditions.  I  summarize  the  conclusions  in  what  fol- 
lows. 

Irish  agriculture  is  backward  because  three-fifths  of  the 
405 


APPENDIX 

land  is  held  by  one-sixth  of  the  landholders  under  terms 
restricting  or  prohibiting  tillage.  Four-fifths  of  all  the 
crops  are  used  on  the  farms  for  seed  or  for  food  to  live 
stock,  and  only  one-fifth  is  sold  either  as  human  food,  as 
food  for  non-agricultural  live  stock,  or  as  raw  material  for 
industry,  such  as  flax  and  barley.  From  that  one-fifth  must 
also  be  deducted  the  one-seventh  which  farmers  and  their 
families  use.  So  farming  product  is  one-seventh  crops  and 
six-sevenths  live  stock  and  produce  for  live  stock.  There 
is  room  then  for  extension  of  the  crop  area  of  Ireland, 
which  would  both  benefit  the  live  stock  production  and  in- 
crease corn  food  for  the  population.  Care  must  be  taken 
in  increasing  tillage  not  to  let  cows  run  dry  for  want  of 
sufficient  food.  But  care  can  be  taken  to  safeguard  live 
stock  and  yet  to  release  the  acreage  of  Ireland  for  tillage. 
Over  sixty-four  per  cent,  of  the  land  of  Ireland  is  in 
grass  or  crops. 

At  every  stage  in  his  history  the  Irish  agriculturalist  has  been 
struggling  against  laws  and  ordinances  that  sought  to  force  grazing 
instead  of  tillage.  These  Orders  and  enactments  are  on  record 
since  the  days  of  Cromwell  and  the  Stuarts. 

But  the  tillage  instinct  of  the  Irish  farmer  has  continued 
strong  against  alien  legislation. 

In  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  Peel  attacked  tillage  in 
Ireland,  and  the  wholesale  evictions  that  cleared  thousands  of 
acres  were  the  beginning  of  the  grazing  ranches  that  are  the  cause 
of  contention  in  our  own  day. 

Four  hundred  and  sixty-seven  thousand  three  hundred 
and  thirty-five  acres  of  wheat  were  lost  to  the  plow. 

The  British  Food  Controller  would  do  well  to  note  that  the 
loss  of  this  food  in  this  crisis  in  his  country's  history  is  due  to 
what  was  then  loudly  acclaimed  as  "wise  British  statesmanship." 
The  decrease  in  the  area  of  all  corn  crops  since  Sir  Robert  Peel's 

406 


APPENDIX 

Plantation  Scheme  was  started  is  nearly  two  million  acres.  There 
is  a  loss  of  60  per  cent,  of  corn,  of  26  per  cent,  of  green  crops, 
and  of  65  per  cent,  of  flax. 

In  1916,  the  area  of  pasture  and  grazed  mountain  in- 
creased by  86,585  acres  to  total  of  12,437,709  acres.  The 
tillage  increased  only  42,236  acres  to  a  total  of  2,400,356 
acres.  So  the  same  bad  tendency  toward  pasture  over 
tillage  is  still  under  way.  England  in  refusing  to  let  Ire- 
land sow  has  now  failed  to  reap  the  harvests  that  would 
have  reduced  submarines  to  toys. 

The  absence  of  drainage  and  of  irrigation  is  a  further 
hindrance  to  Irish  farming.  The  lowering  of  riverbeds, 
like  the  Barrow  and  the  Shannon,  is  suggested.  A  century 
ago,  a  Royal  Commission  of  the  British  Government  recom- 
mended a  drainage  scheme  for  the  477,784  acres  of  turf 
bog  in  Ireland.  Other  commissions  since  then  have  rein- 
forced the  demand,  but  the  bogs  still  exist  and  even  in 
recent  years  have  risen  on  their  underwater  and  traveled 
over  the  adjacent  country,  in  one  instance  for  a  distance 
of  ten  miles  and  a  depth  of  40  feet.  A  bog  injures  the 
land  around  by  excessive  moisture  to  an  extent  of  perhaps 
50  per  cent,  of  its  own  area.  The  bogs  of  Ireland  cover 
4  and  one-third  per  cent,  of  the  surface  of  the  land.  Eight 
and  one-half  per  cent,  of  Connacht  is  bog,  and  nineteen  per 
cent,  of  King's  County.  There  is  bog  in  every  Irish  county. 
If  these  bogs  were  drained,  much  land  would  be  freed,  ir- 
rigation would  be  possible,  and  the  immense  supplies  of 
peat  could  be  used  locally,  converted  into  charcoal,  for  the 
production  of  power. 

TRUSTS 

Lord  Milner  writes : 
The   future   belongs   to   big-scale  business   or   to  such  smaller 

407 


APPENDIX 

businesses  as  can  learn  to  work  together  and  to  pool  their  re- 
sources for  certain  objects — the  full  use  of  scientific  research 
being  only  one  of  them — which  individually  they  are  not  strong 
enough  to  attain. 

But  large-scale  production  alone  does  not  solve  the  labor 
difficulty.  Our  mining  combines  in  the  West  and  Penn- 
sylvania, our  steel  combine  in  the  East,  our  interstate-rail- 
way combines  have  not  softened  the  labor  conflict.  Two 
points  of  view  are  common  in  discussing  big  combines. 
One  is  to  fight  them  as  tyrannical  and  to  try  to  break  them 
up  into  competing  units;  the  other  is  to  swallow  them 
whole.  Neither  satisfies.  Is  the  large  unit  necessarily  the 
most  efficient?  Is  there  no  limit  to  its  size?  If  in  the 
given  case,  it  is  the  most  efficient,  what  shall  be  the  method 
of  democratic  control?  These  are  questions  more  fertile 
than  ethical  questions  of  the  "good  trusts,"  and  theoretical 
questions  as  to  whether  Mr.  Rockefeller  is  the  middleman 
between  individualism  and  socialism.  A  powerful  group  of 
men  are  urging  the  syndication  of  industry  in  England. 
They  approve  of  "the  large  scale"  for  business.  Doubtless, 
they  will  be  successful.  But  when  they  have  achieved  it, 
they  will  be  faced  by  the  same  problems  that  America  now 
wrestles  with. 

THE  DECAY  OF  PARLIAMENT 

Sidney  Low  in  "The  Fortnightly  Review"  says  that  Par- 
liament has  ceased  to  be  a  government-making  organ,  and 
that  government  in  the  future  will  continue  to  be  carried  on 
by  great  administrative  commissions  appointed  by  the  cab- 
inet, directly  responsible  to  it,  and  removed  from  the  direct 
control  of  Parliament. 

The  democratic  machinery  of  the  nineteenth  century  has 
broken  down.  A  new  machinery  is  being  slowly  con- 

408 


APPENDIX 

structed.  Under  the  old  regime  elected  representatives  of 
the  people  became  the  law-making  body,  the  legislature; 
and  a  committee  of  the  legislature  was  selected  to  be  the 
cabinet,  or  executive.  But  in  recent  years  there  has  grown 
up  a  body  of  a  thousand  departmental  administrators,  out- 
side Parliament,  housed  in  government  departments.  This 
bureaucracy  is  a  set  of  permanent  expert  officials  who  not 
only  actually  administer  the  law  as  created  by  Parliament, 
but  initiate  new  legislation,  which  is  carried  into  effect  over 
the  head  of  Parliament,  because  it  is  drafted  into  bills  by 
these  experts,  handed  to  the  cabinet  by  them,  and  made  into 
acts  by  the  power  of  the  cabinet  exercised  on  Parliament. 
So  Parliament  has  tended  to  become  a  ratifying  voice  in- 
stead of  a  law-making  body. 

The  cabinet,  also,  has  changed.  The  various  departmen- 
tal heads,  who  used  to  sii;  around  as  "cabinet  ministers"  and 
confer,  have  been  forced  back  into  their  function  as  ad- 
ministrators of  departments.  A  small  body  of  men,  just 
now  five  in  number,  form  the  directorate  of  government. 
The  change  from  twenty-three  executives  to  five  gives  cen- 
tralization of  power  and  exactly  located  responsibility. 
The  few  can  get  results,  and  they  can  be  held  to  account, 
where  the  many  dodged  both  action  and  "strict  accountabil- 
ity." The  change  is  similar  to  that  which  has  taken  place 
in  several  hundred  American  city  governments.  Under  the 
old  ward  system,  we  used  to  elect  twenty  or  thirty  men  to 
"run"  a  city.  Now  we  elect  a  commission  government  of 
five  men,  with  full  power  and  responsibility,  who  select 
their  departmental  administrative  staffs. 

The  five  who  rule  Great  Britain  are  called  the  War  Coun- 
cil. When  peace  comes,  it  is  probable  that  the  old  ex- 
tended cabinet  will  temporarily  revive  and  resume  its  ac- 
tivities as  a  debating  society,  with  diffused,  unlocated  re- 

409 


APPENDIX 

sponsibility  and  weakened  executive  power.  But  that 
machinery  is  outworn  and  is  sure  to  be  scrapped.  It  was 
constructed  on  the  theory  that  the  state  is  made  up  of  citi- 
zens who  can  conduct  their  corporate  life  through  repre- 
sentatives. That  theory  is  an  over-simplification  of  gov- 
ernment. 

To  sum  up  present  tendencies,  the  executive  is  rapidly 
defining  itself  and  constructing  its  machinery.  It  is  tend- 
ing toward  the  organized  states  directed  by  a  few  powerful 
executives,  surrounded  by  administrative  departments.  It 
has  outpaced  the  legislature,  which  is  drifting  impotent 
on  the  tide  of  state  socialism,  devised  by  expert  officials 
and  enacted  by  the  handful  of  five  men  in  control  of  gov- 
ernment. This  new  legislation  was  demanded  by  the  com- 
munity not  through  its  Parliamentary  representatives,  but 
by  the  new  channels  of  trade-unions  and  government  de- 
partments (military,  naval,  munitions,  board  of  trade,  home 
office,  and  local  government  board). 

But  not  only  has  the  legislature  been  outpaced.  Demo- 
cratic control  over  these  executives  and  experts  has  failed 
to  keep  step  with  the  rapid  growth  in  their  power.  The 
community  has  not  yet  devised  checks  upon  them.  Repre- 
sentatives in  Parliament,  elected  from  geographical  locali- 
ties, are  now  seen  to  be  only  one  of  the  needed  effective 
controls.  The  citizen  is  not  only  and  essentially  a  resident 
in  an  area  called  Battersea  who  elects  a  Battersea  man  to 
safeguard  Battersea  interests.  The  citizen  is  also  a  pro- 
ducer and  a  consumer,  and  he  wishes  those  functions  safe- 
guarded in  government.  The  citizen  as  consumer  is  gradu- 
ally establishing  cooperation  and  local  and  national  owner- 
ship. As  a  producer  he  strengthens  whatever  trade-union 
he  belongs  to  (whether  as  doctor,  business  man,  barrister, 
teacher,  railwayman,  or  locomotive  engineer)  and  is  slowly, 

410 


APPENDIX 

but  increasingly,  establishing  local,  district,  and  national 
parliaments  in  his  profession  and  industry.  Through  work- 
shop council,  joint  district  board,  and  national  conciliation 
committees  he  is  asserting  a  control  on  government.  Al- 
ready it  is  unquestioned  that  the  demands  of  such  a  union 
as  the  miners  are  more  effective  in  creating  new  legislation 
than  the  demands  of  members  of  Parliament.  To  coor- 
dinate these  parallel  and  conflicting  claims  will  be  the  com- 
ing task  of  government.  The  result  will  be  a  remodeled 
British  Constitution.  The  present  total  eclipse  of  Parlia- 
ment is  more  complete  than  it  will  be  after  the  war.  Some 
of  Parliament's  former  power  will  return  to  it.  A  resultant 
will  be  established  between  the  various  pressures  of  pro- 
ducers and  consumers,  between  syndicalism  and  cooperation 
and  state  and  municipal  socialism. 

TARIFF  REFORM 

The  effort  will  soon  be  made  in  Great  Britain  to  thrust 
into  the  forefront  of  politics  minor  fractional  parts  of  re- 
construction as  if  they  were  major.  A  valuable  pamphlet 
called  "The  Elements  of  Reconstruction"  says: 

There  is  a  danger — and  nowadays  it  is  the  great  danger — of  be- 
coming just  as  blindly  superstitious  about  a  tariff  (as  about  the 
kindred  superstition  of  Free  Trade).  A  tariff  is  perhaps  a  neces- 
sary part  of  any  national  economic  scheme,  but  it  is  not  in  itself 
an  economic  scheme.  A  tariff  varies  in  public  value  with  the 
economic  constitution  of  the  State  it  protects.  The  country  will 
not  stand  a  merely  protective  tariff  in  foodstuffs,  or  in  any  com- 
modity. 

CHILD  WELFARE 

Sir  George  Newman,  chief  medical  officer  of  the  board  of 
education,  states: 

The  machinery  for  dealing  with  the  welfare  of  infants  and  of 
children  of  school  age  is  in  existence,  although  all  that  ought  to 

411 


APPENDIX 

be  got  from  it  is  not  yet  being  obtained.  But  the  machinery  for 
dealing  with  children  between  one  year  and  five  years  of  age 
has  yet  to  be  built. 

BACKWARD  RACES 

The  whole  question  of  undeveloped  countries  and  back- 
ward races  has  never  been  thought  through  by  our  people. 
We  are  lazy-minded  on  the  causes  of  the  war,  and  cherish 
a  vague  pacifism,  as  if  the  instinct  of  nationality  and  the 
lust  for  territory  and  new  markets  were  non-existent. 

A.  E.  Zimmern  writes: 

It  may  still  be  argued  that  the  question  is  not  Have  the  civilized 
powers  annexed  large  empires?  but  Ought  they  to  have  done  so? 
Was  such  an  extension  of  governmental  authority  justifiable  or 
inevitable?  Englishmen  in  the  nineteenth  century,  like  Americans 
in  the  twentieth,  were  slow  to  admit  that  it  was;  just  as  the 
exponents  of  laissez-faire  were  slow  to  admit  the  necessity  for 
State  interference  with  private  industry  at  home.  But  in  both 
cases  they  have  been  driven  to  accept  it  by  the  inexorable  logic  of 
facts.  What  other  solution  of  the  problem,  indeed,  is  possible? 

He  then  quotes  another  authority  on  the  impossibility  of 
standing  aside  and  letting  adventurers  and  exploiters  en-> 
ter,  and  on  the  need  of  backward  peoples  having  contact 
with  the  outside  world,  and  receiving  protection  from  op- 
pression and  corruption.  This  is  a  "duty"  of  the  great 
powers — "a  still  better  name  would  be  the  great  responsi- 
bilities." 

The  late  Lord  Cromer,  in  defending  his  rule  in  Egypt, 
once  said: 

What,  gentlemen,  has  there  been  no  moral  advancement?  Is 
the  country  any  longer  governed,  as  was  formerly  the  case,  ex- 
clusively by  the  use  of  the  whip?  Is  not  forced  labor  a  thing  of 
the  past?  Has  not  the  accursed  institution  of  slavery  practically 
ceased  to  exist?  Is  it  not  a  fact  that  every  individual  in  the 
country,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  is  now  equal  in  the  eyes 
of  the  law;  that  thrift  has  been  encouraged,  and  that  the  most 

412 


APPENDIX 

humble  member  of  society  can  reap  the  fruits  of  his  own  labor 
and  industry;  that  justice  is  no  longer  bought  and  sold;  that 
every  one  is  free — perhaps  some  would  think  too  free — to  express 
his  opinions;  that  King  Backsheesh  has  been  dethroned  from  high 
places  and  now  only  lingers  in  the  purlieus  and  byways  of  the 
administration;  that  the  fertilizing  water  of  the  Nile  is  distributed 
impartially  to  prince  and  peasant  alike;  that  the  sick  man  can  be 
tended  in  a  well-equipped  hospital;  that  the  criminal  and  the 
lunatic  are  no  longer  treated  as  wild  beasts;  that  even  the  lot  of 
the  brute  creation  has  not  escaped  the  eyes  of  the  reformer;  that 
the  solidarity  of  interests  between  the  governors  and  the  governed 
has  been  recognized  in  theory  and  in  practice;  that  every  act  of 
the  Administration,  even  if  at  times  mistaken — for  no  one  is  in- 
fallible— bears  the  mark  of  honesty  of  purpose  and  an  earnest  de- 
sire to  secure  the  well-being  of  the  population;  and  further,  that 
the  funds,  very  much  reduced  in  amount,  which  are  now  taken 
from  the  pockets  of  the  taxpayers,  instead  of  being,  for  the  most 
part,  spent  on  useless  palaces  and  other  objects,  in  which  they 
were  in  no  degree  interested,  are  devoted  to  purposes  which  are 
of  real  benefit  to  the  country?  If  all  these,  and  many  other,  points 
to  which  I  could  allude,  do  not  constitute  some  moral  advance- 
ment, then,  of  a  truth,  I  do  not  know  what  the  word  morality  im- 
plies. 

Let  us  criticize  as  much  as  we  like  the  arrogance  of 
tone  in  this  and  in  the  English  belief  in  general  that 
they  are  born  to  govern.  But  what  do  we  offer  in  place 
of  their  imperfect  administration?  Are  we  willing  to  take 
on  our  share  of  the  job  of  internationalizing  these  plague- 
spots,  or  are  we  going  to  turn  them  over  to  the  people  who 
live  there?  Which  people?  To  the  Mahdi  and  Khalifa 
who  rise  on  a  wave  of  religious  hysteria  and  cause  the  death 
of  over  five  million  Egyptians  in  the  space  of  fourteen 
years?  To  the  particular  tribe  with  the  sharpest  sword? 
To  the  most  corrupt,  and  therefore  most  powerful,  native 
prince  who  will  use  machine-guns  on  the  "aliens"  in  the  next 
province  because  they  honor  the  prophet  instead  of  the  all- 
highest  Lord  Buddha?  Is  laissez-faire  satisfactory?  Ac- 

413 


APPENDIX 

tually  there  are  only  three  "futures"  for  the  undeveloped 
countries:  anarchy,  with  the  slavery  and  murder  of  the 
gentler  tribes,  and  the  unbridled  exploitation  of  most  of 
the  natives;  colonial  rule;  internationalization. 

HORATIO  BOTTOMLEY 

The  value  of  Horatio  Bottomley  as  a  leader  in  time  of 
crisis  can  be  appraised  by  these  extracts  from  "John  Bull." 
This  is  his  contribution  to  child  welfare : 

EDUCATION 

Will  the  new  Education  Minister  just  try  to  shake  off  his  Uni- 
versity prejudices,  and  bring  in  a  short  Act  releasing  from  school 
attendance  all  children  capable  of  assisting  on  farms  or  doing 
other  useful  work — for  the  duration  of  the  war?  Never  mind  when 
William  the  Conqueror  came  to  the  throne. 

This  is  his  knightly  militant  note: 

To  win  through  to  victory  we  must  make  every  German  bite  the 
dust.  The  women  who  danced  in  the  streets  when  the  Lusitania 
murders  shocked  civilization  are  fighting  us  just  as  much  as  the 
men  who  reeled  with  drink  when  the  joy  bells  rang  over  little 
children  done  to  death  by  the  bombs  of  the  Zeppelin. 

One  of  his  contributors  has  a  word  for  backward  races: 

Why  drain  Great  Britain  dry  of  its  manhood,  until  the  colored 
sons  of  Empire  have  been  called  into  the  fighting  lines  to  help 
to  bear  the  burden  of  war?  We  want  more  men  to  bring  the 
Hun  to  his  knees— why  not  three,  six,  or  ten  million  colored 
soldiers  to  help  to  ram  the  sword  of  Victory  home?  I  know 
many  of  the  colored  races,  and  I  believe  they  would  fight  willingly 
and  splendidly.  Some  opponents  allege  otherwise;  if  the  latter 
are  right,  why  ask  the  British  taxpayers  in  time  of  peace  to  shell 
out  to  keep  and  protect  a  population  that  is  no  good  to  us  in 
time  of  adversity? 

Finally  we  have  Bottomley,  the  man  of  faith  and  vision, 
facing  the  unseen,  a  gentleman  unafraid: 

414 


APPENDIX 

I,  the  man  of  the  world,  the  man  of  Business,  the  man  of 
affairs,  the  disciple  of  Foote  and  Bradlaugh,  the  nephew  of 
George  Jacob  Holyoake — I  have  come  to  be  convinced  that  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  Death. 


LORD  NORTHCLIFFE 

If  labor  becomes  the  crowned  king,  Lord  Northcliffe  will 
be  found  the  first  by  the  throne.  The  most  popular  news- 
paper in  Great  Britain  is  his  "Daily  Mail."  It  is  getting 
ready  to  make  the  flop.  On  January  25,  1917,  it  stated 
editorially : 

LABOR  AND  THE  NORTHCLIFFE  PRESS 

WHY    WE    ARE    PLEASED 

Far  from  believing  that  Labor  has  supplied  too  many  Cabinet 
Ministers,  we  look  forward  quite  confidently  and  cheerfully  to  the 
day  when  it  will  have  many  mor^,  believing  that  after  the  success 
of  our  present  Labor  Ministers  other  Labor  Ministers  will  be 
just  as  good.  The  responsibility  of  carrying  on  this  Empire  is 
great  enough  and  inspiring  enough  to  bring  out  the  best  qualities 
of  any  man  of  energy  and  insight  who  puts  his  back  into  the 
work.  And  if  we  are  told  with  bated  breath  that  a  Labor  Cabinet 
is  a  possibility  of  the  future,  then  we  reply  without  hesitation 
that  we  are  quite  ready  for  it.  We  are  satisfied  that  whenever 
it  does  come,  as,  no  doubt,  it  will  in  due  course,  it  will  be  as 
good  as  any  other  Government  we  have  ever  had  and  it  may  be 
assured  that  in  working  for  the  welfare  of  our  country  and  the 
Empire  it  will  have  the  support  of  the  Northcliffe  Press. 

THE  WHITE  KNIGHT 

Here  is  a  touch  out  of  the  eleventh  century.  A  recent 
issue  of  "The  Observer"  stated  that  "if  we  are  not  mis- 
taken," the  line  of  the  White  Knight  was  now  extinct. 
Philip  John  Fits-Gibbon  thereupon  wrote  to  them  in  No- 
vember of  1916: 

415 


APPENDIX 

OBSERVER: 

November  12,  1916. 

I  beg  to  observe  that  this  is  not  the  case.  Though  I  have  never 
assumed  the  title,  I  am  the  holder  of  it.  ...  At  the  time  of  my 
father's  death  in  February,  1881,  my  uncle  published  an  obituary 
notice  in  "The  Times"  and  other  papers  stating  that  my  father, 
Maurice  Fitz-Gibbon,  was  the  White  Knight  and  that  I  was  his 
successor  in  the  title. 

In  Vol.  XVII,  No.  93,  of  the  Journal  of  the  Cork  Historical  and 
Archaeological  Society  for  January-March,  1912,  Colonel  J.  Grove 
White,  J.  P.,  D.L.,  of  Kilbyrne,  Co.  Cork,  published  the  White 
Knight's  pedigree  (from  Dominus  Otho  in  A.D.  1057  to  date), 
which  was  taken  from  the  authorities  he  has  therein  quoted,  and 
stated  clearly  that  I  hold  the  title  of  White  Knight,  being  24th 
in  descent  from  the  said  Dominus  Otho  and  17th  in  descent  from 
the  first  White  Knight,  Maurice,  who  was  the  eldest  son  of  Gilbert, 
or  Gibbon,  whose  second  and  third  brothers,  John  and  Maurice, 
were  the  respective  ancestors  of  the  Knights  of  Glinn  (Black 
Knight)  and  Kerry  (Red  Knight).  These  Knighthoods  date  from 
the  battle  of  Hallidon  Hill  in  1333. 

The  pedigree  is  taken  largely  from  the  Cotter  MS.,  now  in  the 
British  Museum.  Burke's  "Landed  Gentry,"  too,  states  that  I  am 
the  White  Knight. 

LOCAL  PATRIOTISM 

The  English  love  of  locality  is  often  overlooked  by  for- 
eign observers,  because  the  Englishman  seldom  puts  it  into 
words.  Thus  Monsieur  Davry  says  that  the  word  patrie 
does  not  exist  in  English:  for  a  Frenchman  patrie  means 
his  sacred  soil:  home  and  inheritance.  But  "the  place  and 
all  around  it"  are  equally  dear  to  the  Englishman.  Re- 
cently Lieutenant  Lord  Newborough  died  from  trench-chill. 
In  his  will  he  wrote: 

I  wish  to  be  buried,  if  I  die  in  England,  in  the  simplest  manner 
compatible  with  decency,  on  the  summit  of  the  Bluff  in  Festiniog, 
which  lies  on  the  western  side  of  the  road  from  Bryn  Llewellyn 

416 


APPENDIX 

and  which  Bluff  is  known  to  my  sisters  and  intimate  friends  as 
Newborough  Hill,  as  from  that  spot  there  is  my  favorite  view 
down  the  Vale  of  Festiniog;  and  I  wish  my  tombstone  to  be  a 
simple  slab  of  stone  from  my  estate,  protected  from  desecration 
by  tourists,  but  otherwise  leaving  my  burial-place  free  for  sheep  and 
cattle  to  roam  all  around  the  actual  grave. 

THE  BRITISH  COMMONWEALTH 

Archdall  Reid  has  written  in  the  "Eugenics  Review"  of 
the  British  Commonwealth.  He  says: 

This  conflict  (the  war),  however  huge,  is  no  more  than  an 
episode  in  an  immensely  vaster  struggle,  of  which  the  prize  is  not 
precarious  political  supremacy  in  Europe  for  a  few  generations,  but 
world  predominance  irrevocably  established  by  nature.  True  de- 
cision was  reached  nearly  a  century  ago.  The  great  immigrations 
and  permanent  conquests  are  drawing  to  a  final  close.  Germany 
joins  a  contest  already  decided.  The  battle  is  over,  and  with  us 
rests  the  ultimate  victory.  The  Anglo-Saxons  have  more  space  for 
expansion  than  any  other  people.  "All  North  America"  is  "in  the 
grasp  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  his  race"  has  "almost  limitless  space 
for  expansion."  Subsequently  he  colonized  Australasia.  His  place 
in  the  sun,  his  ultimate  world-supremacy  was  now  established.  .  .  . 
With  the  exception  of  temperate  South  America  and  parts  of  the 
western  seaboard  of  that  continent,  our  race  has  colonized  almost 
all  the  regions  of  the  new  world  in  which  it  is  possible  for  a 
European  race  to  flourish.  In  the  coming  future  no  other  people 
will  be  so  numerous,  so  widespread,  or  in  command  of  resources  so 
tremendous. 

Canada  and  Australasia  may  follow  the  example  of  the  United 
States,  and  separate  politically  from  the  parent  stock.  BUT  THE 
RACE  ITSELF  IS  SECURE.  It  is  impossible,  within  the  bounds 
of  probability,  to  imagine  a  conjunction  of  circumstances  capable 
of  uprooting  it  from  its  new  habitations.  The  sword  and  disease 
are  the  only  agents  of  racial  elimination  known  to  us,  and  now  the 
latter,  like  the  former,  is  losing  its  power. 

Dean  Inge,  who  is  one  of  the  two  or  three  best  thinkers 
in  the  Established  Church,  has  visioned  the  same  future, 

417 


APPENDIX 

and  he  sees  the  possibility  of  a  white  race  of  200,000,000 
in  the  British  Commonwealth. 

WHAT  TO  READ 

A  bibliography  of  the  present  reconstruction  in  Great 
Britain  would  number  thousands  of  books  and  pamphlets. 
I  wish  to  suggest  a  few  of  the  more  important  of  these 
for  my  reader  who  cares  to  make  a  study. 

Graham  Wallas's  "Human  Nature  in  Politics"  and  "The 
Great  Society"  are  the  products  of  a  lifetime  of  construct- 
ive thinking  by  one  of  the  fertile  intellects  of  the  modern 
world.  No  one  who  wishes  to  understand  the  deeper 
psychological  elements  in  the  problems  of  modern  England 
can  do  without  the  help  of  Wallas.  He  is  one  of  the  few 
writers  on  human  nature  in  national  and  international  poli- 
tics and  industrial  organization  whose  conclusions  have  been 
left  unassailed  by  the  war. 

Bertrand  Russell's  "Principles  of  Social  Reconstruc- 
tion" (published  in  America  as  "Why  Men  Fight")  is  a 
stimulating  instance  of  the  new  psychology  applied  to  so- 
ciety. It  contains  passages  of  great  beauty.  Mr.  Russell 
is  not  a  fundamental  thinker  in  social  matters  in  the  sense 
that  Graham  Wallas  is.  His  book  is  a  poem. 

A.  E.  Zimmern's  essays  in  the  "Round  Table"  and  in  the 
volume  "Progress  and  History"  are  a  careful  study  of  the 
industrial  situation  by  a  man  who  understands  the  present 
tendency  toward  workers  control. 

"The  Reorganization  of  Industry/'  a  pamphlet  issued  by 
Ruskin  College,  contains  a  skilful  analysis  of  what  the  post- 
office  would  be  under  democratic  control. 

W.  Mellor,  the  secretary  of  the  National  Guilds  League, 
has  kindly  drawn  up  for  me  a  list  of  references  on  work- 
ers' control.  The  list  includes  "Labor  in  War  Time"  by 

418 


APPENDIX 

G.  D.  H.  Cole;  the  publications  of  the  National  Guilds 
League  on  "National  Guilds,"  "The  Guild  Idea,"  "Towards 
a  Miners'  Guild";  "National  Guilds,"  edited  by  A.  R. 
Orage;  "The  World  of  Labor"  by  Cole;  "The  Coal  Trade" 
by  H.  S.  Jevons;  "Experiments  in  Industrial  Organization" 
by  Cadbury;  "Trade  as  a  Science"  by  McBeanj  "Coopera- 
tive Production  and  Profit  Sharing,"  an  investigation  by 
the  committee  of  the  Fabian  Research  Department. 

The  investigation  by  the  section  of  economic  science  and 
statistics  of  the  British  Association  for  the  Advancement  of 
Science  has  been  published  under  the  title  of  "Labor, 
Finance  and  the  War." 

The  pamphlet  "Great  Britain  After  the  War"  by  Sidney 
Webb  and  Arnold  Freeman  is  a  short  and  valuable  sum- 
mary. 

The  Garton  Foundation  has  issued  a  book  on  the  "In- 
dustrial Situation  after  the  War"  which  analyzes  the  revo- 
lutionary unrest  and  suggests  remedies.  Mr.  Balfour  is 
one  of  the  trustees  of  this  foundation. 

The  investigations  of  Seebohm  Rowntree  are  already 
classics  for  social  workers.  His  studies  of  York,  of  agri- 
cultural labor,  of  land,  of  Belgium,  are  widely  known.  It 
will  be  found  that  his  recommendations  will  be  influential 
in  the  reconstruction. 

"The  Times"  has  had  four  series  of  articles  of  high  im- 
portance. One  series  has  been  republished  in  a  pamphlet 
called  "The  Elements  of  Reconstruction,"  with  an  intro- 
duction by  Viscount  Milner.  A  second  series  was  on  the 
resources  of  the  empire,  written  by  Wilson  Fox,  and  led  to 
the  formation  of  the  Empire  Resources  Development  Com- 
mittee. A  third  was  on  the  South  Wales  miners,  and  was 
instrumental  in  leading  the  Government  to  take  over  the 
mines.  A  fourth  was  on  the  industrial  situation  after  the 

419    ' 


APPENDIX 

war,  and  is  a  powerful  statement  for  workers'  control.  It 
is  written  by  Sidney  Webb,  and  is  now  republished  in 
pamphlet  form. 

Miss  Proud's  book  on  "Women  and  Welfare  Work/'  with 
an  introduction  by  Lloyd-George,  is  a  careful  compilation 
of  the  improvements  in  the  status  of  the  British  worker 
instituted  by  employers,  the  trade-unions,  and  the  state. 
There  is  little  interpretation  in  the  book,  but  a  valuable 
mass  of  facts. 

There  is  unfortunately  nothing  comprehensive  on  the 
woman's  movement  in  its  present  development.  The  re- 
ports of  Miss  Anderson  to  the  home  office  and  Mrs.  Bernard 
Drake's  "Women  in  Engineering"  are  valuable  for  the 
area  they  cover.  Files  of  the  "Woman  Worker,"  the  organ 
of  the  Women's  Trade  Union  Movement,  cover  many  spe- 
cific instances.  But  the  book  of  the  movement  remains  to 
be  written.  What  is  needed  in  England  to  give  coherence 
and  self-consciousness  to  the  woman's  movement  is  as  good 
a  book  as  Katharine  Anthony's  "Feminism  in  Germany 
and  Scandinavia." 

An  excellent  English  statement  of  the  Irish  situation  is 
given  in  the  "Round  Table"  for  September,  1916.  George 
Russell  ("A.  E.")  handles  economics  with  his  own  admir- 
able rhythm  in  his  volume,  "The  National  Being:  Some 
Thoughts  on  an  Irish  Polity."  He  is  one  of  the  three  lead- 
ers in  the  Irish  Cooperative  Movement.  No  book  exists  to 
give  us  the  full  history  of  the  cooperative  movement  in 
Ireland.  It  should  be  written. 

For  an  understanding  of  the  young  men  of  Ireland  to- 
day the  files  for  recent  months  of  such  weeklies  as  the  "New 
Ireland"  and  "Irish  Opinion"  are  necessary.  Nowhere  else 
is  there  so  bold  and  clear  an  expression  of  the  idealism 
which  is  penetrating  the  younger  elements  of  the  nation. 

420 


APPENDIX 

Such,  then,  are  a  few  of  the  publications  of  comment 
on  the  vast  changes  now  under  way  in  the  British  nation. 
The  opportunity  is  ripe  for  a  book  on  the  British  common- 
wealth corresponding  to  Bryce's  "American  Common- 
wealth." 


421 


INDEX 


A.  E.:  180;  solution  of  Anglo- 
Irish  problem  by,  198-205; 
quoted  on  tenant  fanners  in 
Ireland,  213,  214,  264.  See 
George  Russell. 

"A  Nation  Once  Again":  pa- 
triotic Irish  song,  quoted, 
192. 

"A  Study  of  Working  Class 
Households  in  Northampton, 
Stanley  and  Reading" : 
quoted  on  housing  of  work- 
ingmen,  384,  385. 

Actresses'  Franchise  League, 
103. 

Adams,  Mrs.  Bridges,  355,  356. 

Afforestation,  23. 

Agricultural  communities:  past 
success  of,  60  et  seq. 

Allen,  Miss,  159. 

"Amalgamated  Society  of  Engi- 
neers Journal,"  285,  286. 

America:  English  emigration 
to,  31 ;  wages  of  women  in, 
96 ;  birth-control  movement 
in,  116;  attitude  of,  toward 
birth  restriction,  124  et  seq.; 
national  thought  in,  317-326. 
See  United  States. 

Anglo-Indian:  type  of,  329,  330. 

Anitchkin,  Dimitri,  285. 

Antin,  Mary,  325. 

Aristophanes:  quoted  on  eman- 
cipation of  woman,  393. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  211. 

Art:  attitude  of  modern  democ- 
racy toward,  61  et  seq. 


Artists'  League,  103. 
Asquitb,  Mr.,  36. 
"Atheneuni,"  266. 
Atkinson,  Miss,  101. 
Australia,  4,  9. 


Bairnsfather,  Captain  Bruce:  on 
the  "Tommy"  attitude  toward 
trench  fighting,  280,  281. 

Bakunin,  283. 

Balfour,  Mr.:  type  of  mind  of, 
8;  quoted  on  democracy,  367, 
381. 

Beatty,  3. 

Belgium:  in  relation  to  social 
problems,  69  et  seq.;  relief 
work  for,  237,  238,  241. 

Bell,  Sir  Hugh:  analysis  by,  of 
wage  problem,  quotation,  48, 
49,  foot-note;  on  cost  of  pro- 
duction of  steel,  382. 

Belloc,  Hilaire,  272. 

Bibliography  of  reconstruction 
movement  in  Great  Britain, 
413-416. 

Bigland,  Alfred:  quoted  on  em- 
pire resources,  363,  364. 

Birth-control:  problem  of,  112 
et  seq.;  movement  in  Amer- 
ica, 116;  English  opinion  on, 
390-393. 

Bishops:  attitude  of,  toward 
workers,  30. 

Black,  Clementine,  101. 

Blatchford,  Robert,  348. 

Bloomfield,  92. 


423 


INDEX 


Bonar   Law:    "Tory"    type    of 

mind  of,  8. 
Bosanquet,  Mrs.,  101. 
Bottomley,       Horatio,       editor 

"John    Bull":    248,    267-269, 

295;  quoted  on  education,  410; 

attitude  toward  death,  410. 
Bridges,  Robert,  272. 
Brisbane,  Arthur,  268. 
British   Association:   report  of, 

cited    on    modern    automatic 

machinery,  22,  59. 
British     Commonwealth:     plan 

and  purpose  of  new,  4  et  seq.; 

influence  of  war  on,  6  et  seq., 

96,  252,  253;  relation  of  south 

of  England  to,  292,  293;  Lord 

Milner  quoted  on,  353;  Arch- 

dall  Reid  on,  412,  413.    See 

England,  Ireland. 
British   Empire:   unification  of 

into  one  state,  7  et  seq. 
"British  Weekly,"  272. 
Bryce,     Viscount:     quoted     on 

English  war  spirit,  229. 
Burns,  Robert,  93. 
Butler,     Geoffrey:     quoted     on 

class  system,  27,  350. 
Button,  62. 

Cabinet:    cause    of   changes    in 

British,  7  et  seq.;  predictions 

as  to  shifts  in,  9. 
Cambridge:     influence     of,     on 

class  system,  28. 
"Cambridge  Magazine,"  248. 
Canada,  4. 
Canning,  321. 
Carels  Freres,  380. 
Carpenter,  Edward,  63;  quoted 

on  English  people,  183,  184, 

314. 
Carson,  Sir  Edward:  8;  quoted 

on     Ulster's     attitude,     202, 


Cathery,  E.:  quoted  on  right  of 
asylum,  285. 

Catholic  Women's  League,  103. 

"Chamber's,"  274. 

Chamberlain,  Joseph,  378. 

Chesterton,  Cecil,  260,  261. 

Chesterton,  Gilbert  K.:  remark 
of,  on  writing  books,  63; 
quoted  on  the  democratic 
movement,  229,  258;  effect  of, 
on  public  opinion,  260-262 ;  on 
the  "Tommy"  attitude  toward 
war,  280. 

Child  labor,  144,  166  et  seq. 

Child  welfare:  Sir  George  New- 
man quoted  on,  407. 

Childers,  Erskine:  cited  on  the 
new  social  order  in  Ireland, 
177. 

Children:  withdrawal  of,  from 
industry,  144. 

"Christian  Commonwealth," 
British  periodical,  272. 

Church :  "brotherhood  of  trench- 
es" tried  in,  366,  367. 

Class  system,  26  et  seq. 

Clergy:  influence  of  Church  of 
England  on  socialism,  29  et 
seq. 

Clifford,  Dr.,  344. 

Clothes:  women's  increased  ex- 
penditure on,  since  entering 
industrial  field,  393-395. 

Cohan,  George,  267. 

Collet,  Clara,  101. 

Colonies:  attitude  of,  toward 
present  status,  4. 

Combines.    See  Trusts. 

Common  people:  awakening  of, 
13.  See  also  Workmen. 

"Common  Sense,"  274. 

Commonwealth:  genesis  of  the 
British,  4  et  seq.;  effect  of 
war  on,  6  et  seq.  See  British 
Commonwealth. 


424 


INDEX 


Companion  help:  wage  and 
work-schedule  of,  in  boarding 
house,  146. 

Connolly,  188. 

Constitutional  reconstruction: 
effect  of  war  on,  6  et  seq. 

"Contemporary  Review,"  273. 

Cooperation:  study  of,  in  Eng- 
land, 368-380. 

Cooperative  communities:  influ- 
ence of,  82  et  seq. 

Cooperative  socialism:  tendency 
of  England  toward,  15  et  seq. 

Cooperative  Society,  379. 

Cooperative  societies:  in  Ire- 
land, 213  et  seq. 

"Cornhill  Magazine,"  274. 

"Cotton  Factory  Times,"  285. 

Croatia,  96. 

Cromer,  Lord:  253,  329;  quoted 
on  moral  advancement  of 
Egypt  under  British  rule, 
408,  409. 

Croom,  Sir  John  Halliday: 
quoted  on  birth-control,  391, 
392. 

Cuba,  822. 

Curtis,  Lionel,  253,  269,  273. 

Curzon,  Lord:  type  of  political 
mind  of,  8,  14,  262,  329. 


"Daily  Mail"  (London):  270, 
295,  311 ;  quoted  on  labor,  411. 

"Daily  News"  (London):  271; 
census  by,  of  church  attend- 
ance, 388. 

"Dallas  News,"  271. 

Devenport,  Lord,  311. 

Davies,  Mr.,  war  secretary,  339. 

Davis,  Thomas:  author  of  song 
"A  Nation  Once  Again," 
quoted,  192 

Davray,  Monsieur,  412. 

Dawson,  Miss  Darner:  159;  quo- 


tation from  speech  by,  on  po- 
licewomen, 161-163. 

Debt:  post-bellum  problem  of 
national,  248,  249. 

Democracy:  England's  influence 
on,  3  et  seq.;  effect  of,  on  la- 
bor, 5;  influence  of  present 
war  on,  6;  meaning  of,  9;  as 
a  producer  of  leaders,  10  et 
seq.;  purposes  of,  12;  growth 
of  industrial,  58  et  seq.;  Eng- 
lish workman  mainspring  of, 
75,  76;  three  great  sons  of, 
80;  demands  of  England  on 
new,  82  et  seq.;  war  run  by, 
238,  239,  252;  attitude  of,  to- 
ward leaders,  254  et  seq.; 
compulsory,  367,  368. 

Democratic  control :  explana- 
tion of,  53  et  seq.;  Dr. 
Graham  Wallas  quoted  on, 
56. 

Denmark:  relation  of,  to  social 
problems,  69  et  seq. 

Desborough,  Selborne,  363. 

Despard,  Mrs.,  101. 

Detroit:  a  model  industrial  city, 
75. 

Dickens,  Charles,  261. 

Dickinson,  Lowes,  277,  314. 

Disraeli,  Benjamin:  quoted  on 
tariff,  249,  250,  329. 

Dixmude,  70. 

Domestic  policy:  attitude  of 
colonies  toward  England's,  4. 

Domestic  service:  war's  effect 
on,  137. 

Donnington  Hall,  278. 

Dostoyevsky:  quoted  on  free- 
dom, 78. 

Dreyfus  trial,  176. 

Drummond,  Mrs.  (The  Gen- 
eral) :  Lloyd-George  and,  20, 
158;  comparison  of,  with 
Chesterton,  258,  259, 


425 


INDEX 


Dublin:    congested    population 

of,  207. 
Du  Cros:  women  in  the,  factory, 

105. 

Dunraven,  Lord,  363. 
Dunsany,  180. 

"Edinburgh  Review,"  274. 

Education:  systems  of,  in  Eng- 
land, 305  et  seq. 

"Elements  of  Reconstruction," 
pamphlet:  quoted,  407. 

Ellis,  Havelock:  quotation  from 
"Essays  in  War  Time,"  by, 
116,  119,  124,  314;  quoted  on 
English  arrogance,  349. 

Empire  resources,  231,  232. 

England:  influence  of,  on  de- 
mocracy, 3  et  seq.;  extension 
of  power  of,  4  et  seq.;  tend- 
ency of,  toward  cooperative 
socialism,  15;  solution  of  labor 
problem  in,  18  et  seq.;  privi- 
leged classes  in,  26  et  seq.; 
penalty  to,  if  industrial  de- 
mocracy fail,  35  et  seq.,  58, 
59;  influence  of,  upon  Russia, 
64;  effect  upon,  of  cheap 
transportation  for  workmen, 
70,  71;  the  supreme  need  of 
England,  71-73;  demands  of 
new  democracy  on  England, 
82;  Zimmern's  views  on  indus- 
trial Germanization  of,  89- 
94;  champion  of  freedom  and 
justice,  183;  spirit  of,  at  war, 
228  et  seq.;  why,  will  win 
present  war,  231  et  seq.;  tem- 
perament of  people  of,  231, 
232;  attitude  of,  toward  tariff 
on  McKinley  basis,  249;  heart 
of  social  problem  of,  250;  de- 
mand of,  for  representation, 
254  et  seq.;  emotional  change 
in,  257  et  seq.;  question  of  lib- 


erty in,  274  et  seq.;  attitude 
of,  toward  free  speech,  274- 
281;  "right  of  asylum"  grant- 
ed by,  281-291;  patriarchal, 
compared  with  modern,  292, 
293;  passing  of  Little,  293- 
296;  public  opinion  in,  on 
peace,  299-301;  systems  of 
education  in,  305  et  seq.;  co- 
existent civilizations  in,  309- 
312;  study  of  cooperation  in, 
368-380. 

English:  "a  sentimental  nation," 
240. 

English  Cooperative  Wholesale 
Society,  372. 

"English  Prose  Rhymes,"  an- 
thology, by  Professor  George 
Saintsbury,  314. 

Englishmen:  individuality  of, 
16:  faults  of,  40,  41:  national- 
ity of,  329-336. 

Esher,  Viscount,  381. 

"Essays  in  War  Time":  quota- 
tion from,  by  Havelock  Ellis, 
116,  119,  124,  314. 

"Eugenics  Review,"  412. 

Euripides:  quoted  on  woman's 
emancipation,  393. 

Europe:  impossibility  of  united 
commonwealths  of,  6;  demo- 
cratic forces  in,  80;  effect  on, 
woman's  fight  for  political 
recognition,  95  et  seq. 

"Evening  Gazette,"  Cedar  Rap- 
ids, Iowa:  opinion  of,  of  Cap- 
tain Hans  Rose,  317. 

"Everyman,"  272. 

Exports:  Irish,  to  Great  Britain 
in  1916,  217. 


Fabian     Research     Committee, 

373. 
Fabian  Society,  313. 


INDEX 


Factories:  joint  boards  in,  50; 
effect  of  war  on,  242-245. 

Fall  River,  250. 

Fawcett,  Mrs.,  101,  390. 

"Fecundity  versus  Civilization," 
by  Adelyne  More:  quotations 
from,  390-393. 

Female.    See  Woman. 

Feminists  of  the  War  Office  and 
Admiralty,  118  et  aeq. 

Fisher,  H.  A.  L.,  minister  of 
education,  303,  304. 

Fitz-Gibbon,  Philip  John:  let- 
ter from,  411. 

Ford,  Henry,  207,  337. 

Foreign  policy:  attitude  of  col- 
onies toward  England's,  4  et 
seq. 

"Fortnightly  Review,"  273. 

"Forward,"  274. 

France:  the  privileged  classes 
in,  26,  27,  96,  176;  nationality 
in,  326. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  323. 

Free  Speech:  attitude  of  Eng- 
land toward,  274-281. 

Free  trade:  Disraeli  quoted  on, 
249,  250. 

"Freeman's  Journal":  quotation 
from,  on  agriculture,  400. 

French  communards,  283. 

French  railway  strike,  41. 

French  reactionaries,  15. 

French  Revolution,  41,  96. 

Furnes,  70. 

Gaelic:  effect  of  study  of,  182. 
Galsworthy,  272. 
Gardiner,  A.  G.,  271. 
Carton,  Sir  Richard,  381. 
Garton    Foundation:    result   of 
investigation  of,  quoted,  381. 
Garvin,  J.  L.,  272. 
"General,   The"    (Mrs.    Drum- 


mond):  158;  comparison  with 
Chesterton,  258,  259. 

Germany:  attitude  of,  toward 
woman,  100,  243;  ignorance 
of,  as  to  England's  resources, 
278,  279. 

Ghent,  70,  86. 

Gillingham:  domestics'  war-sav- 
ings association  of,  237. 

Gilmour,  Lennox:  campaign 
story  told  by,  234-236. 

Giovanitti,  189. 

Girl:  letter  of,  revealing  true 
war  spirit  of  England,  230, 
231. 

Gould,  Baring,  311. 

Great  Britain:  changes  in  gov- 
ernment leadership  of,  3  et 
seq.;  effect  of  war  on  rela- 
tions between,  and  colonies,  7 
et  seq.,  100,  252;  northern  and 
western,  in  fight  for  democ- 
racy, 291  et  seq.;  public  opin- 
ion in,  291-302;  study  of  co- 
operation in,  363-380;  tariff 
reform  hi,  407.  See  also  Eng- 
land. 

"Great  Society,  The,"  by  Gra- 
ham Wallas:  passage  from,  on 
rights  of  small  nations,  211. 

"Greek  Commonwealth,  The" : 
quoted  on  professional 
women,  292,  293. 

Gregory,  Lady,  180. 

Grey,  Viscount,  270,  363. 

Grimsby:  relation  of,  to  war- 
savings,  237. 

Gwynne,  14,  248. 

Gymnastic  Teachers'  Suffrage 
Society,  103. 

Hague  Conference:  stimulus  of, 
to  British  commonwealth, 
253. 

Haig,  Sir  Douglas,  3. 


427 


INDEX 


Harcourt,  Lewis:  quoted  on 
public  ownership,  377. 

'Harrison,  Austin,  248. 

Hay,  John,  323. 

Henderson,  Arthur,  311. 

Henry,  O.,  279. 

Henson,  Dean,  367. 

"Herald"  (London),  272. 

"Hibbert  Journal,"  274. 

Hodge,  Mr.,  Minister  of  Labor; 
quoted  on  war's  effect  on  new 
plants,  242 ;  on  free  trade,  350. 

Holy  Alliance,  321. 

Home  Office,  62. 

Home  Rule:  new  Irish  attitude 
toward,  181, 182, 193-227,  pas- 
sim. 

Hornsey,  160. 

Hours:  influence  of  long,  on  so- 
cial movement,  25. 

Housing,  23,  69,  70,  384-386. 

"How  the  Laborer  Lives":  quo- 
tation from,  on  rural  condi- 
tions, 385,  386. 

Howells,  William  Dean,  272. 

Hughes,  Mr.,  premier  of  Aus- 
tralia, 254. 

Huguenots,  283. 

Hysteria:  growth  of,  among 
English  middle  class,  258  et 
seq. 

Independent  Labor  party,  90. 

India,  4,  5. 

Industrialism,  67  et  seq.  See 
also  Workmen. 

Inge,  Dean:  quoted  on  "indus- 
trial celibacy,"  392;  on  future 
of  British  Commonwealth, 
413. 

International  relations:  prob- 
lem of,  11. 

Ireland:  pioneer  work  of,  in 
peasant  proprietorship,  22; 
nationalism  in,  173  et  seq.; 


force  of  tradition  in,  175, 176; 
industrial  activities  of,  179; 
attitude  of  the  man  in  the 
street  toward,  189,  190;  total 
cultivated  area  and  propor- 
tionate productiveness  of, 
219,  220;  uncultivated  land  in, 
219-225;  how,  must  be  ruled, 
219,  220;  financial  gain  of, 
since  the  50's,  222  et  seq.,  252. 

Irish  agriculture,  400-403. 

Irish  Agricultural  Organization 
Society,  179. 

Irish- Americans,  208. 

Irish  newspapers:  independence 
of,  263,  264. 

Irish  people:  changed  attitude 
of,  toward  Redmond,  255. 

Irish  players,  180. 

Irish  question:  173  et  seq.;  real, 
poverty,  206;  a  stumbling- 
block  to  England's  conduct  of 
present  war,  209  et  seq.;  Eng- 
lish public  opinion  on,  297- 
299. 

Irish  railways:  397-400;  British 
government  control  of,  399. 

Irish  rebellion,  173-227,  passim. 

James,  Senator  Ollie:  quoted  on 

America's     attitude     toward 

present  war,  317. 
James,  Professor  William,  340. 
Jameson,  Sir  Starr,  363. 
"John  Bull":  267,  295;  extracts 

from,  410. 
Joint     committees:     settlement 

by,  of  trade  disputes,  49  et 

seq. 
Journalism:  studies  in  British, 

260-274;  effect  of  war  on,  263- 

267. 

Kl:  334. 
K2:  334. 
K3:  334. 


428 


INDEX 


K4:  335. 

K5:  336. 

"Kansas  City  Star,"  271. 

Keithley:  war  savings  of,  237. 

Kenney,  Miss,  259. 

Kerr,  P.  H.,  263. 

Key,  Ellen,  118. 

Kipling,  Rudyard,  248,  273,  279, 

363. 

Kitchener,  Lord,  384. 
Kropotkin,  283. 


La  Panne,  70. 

Labor:  effect  of  democracy  on, 
problem,  5;  effect  of  war  on, 
14  et  seq.;  shell-making  as 
light  on  problem  of,  18;  ef- 
fect of  peace  on,  quotation, 
42,  43;  future  of,  73  et  seq. 

Labor  College,  353-362. 

"Labor  Leader,"  274. 

Lady  help :  salary  and  duties  of, 
147,  148,  150;  at  ladies'  hostel 
for  war  workers,  151;  at  army 
pay  officers'  mess,  152;  at 
lodging-house,  153. 

Lancaster,  Ray,  253. 

"Land  and  Labor — Lessons 
from  Belgium,"  by  Seebohm 
Rowntree:  quotation  from, 
387. 

Land  Courts :  advocacy  of,  360. 

Land  Inquiry  Committee,  357- 
360. 

Landlordism,  212  et  seq, 

Lansbury,  George,  272. 

Lasker,  Bruno,  313. 

Law,  Sidney:  quoted  on  decay 
of  Parliament,  404. 

Leaders:  cause  of  change  in,  of 
government,  5;  requirements 
of,  in  a  democracy,  9  et  seq.; 
England's  need  of  wise,  71  et 
seq.;  of  the  woman  move- 


ment, 101  et  seq.;  demand  for 
representative,  254  et  seq. 

League  of  the  Society  of 
Friends,  103. 

Lee,  Robert  E.,  190. 

Leisure:  the  problem  of,  61  et 
seq.,  68. 

Lever,  Sir  William,  364. 

Life:  rules  for  "playing  the 
game"  of,  86  et  seq. 

Lincoln,  Abraham:  product  of 
democracy,  80,  323. 

Literature:  effect  of  social 
movement  on,  314  et  seq. 

Lloyd-George:  3;  attitude  to- 
ward drink,  18;  and  suffra- 
gettes, 20,  25,  62,  100,  185; 
opinion  of,  on  spirit  of  Eng- 
land, 229,  230;  Bottomley  on, 
268,  293;  study  of,  337-345; 
quoted  on  editors,  340. 

London  Graduates'  Union  for 
Women's  Suffrage,  103. 

Lusitania,  322,  324. 

Lyburn,  E.  St.  John:  quoted  on 
coal  fields  of  Ireland,  399. 


MacArthur,  Mary,  101. 
MacDonald,  Ramsay,  62,  277. 
MacNeill,  Professor:  quoted  on 

partition  question,  194-196. 
Machinery:   modern    automatic, 

22,  59;  problem  of  new,  243- 

245. 

Mafeking  Night,  257. 
Maine,  322. 
Mallon,   J.    J.:    62;   quoted   on 

trade-unions,  397. 
"Manchester     Guardian,"     271, 

293. 
Man-supported  family:  passing 

of  the,  105. 
Marine  engines,  17. 
Marne,  176. 


429 


INDEX 


Marx,    Karl:    Influence   of,   on 

English  labor,  90,  283. 
Massachusetts:  minimum  wage 

of  women  in,  98. 
Massingham,  H.  W.,  311. 
Mauretania:  65. 
Maxse,    Leo:    248;    quoted    on 

United  States,  298. 
Mazzini,   genius   of  democracy, 

80,  283. 
Meath,  Earl  of:  on  uncultivated 

land  in  Ireland,  220,  221. 
Melle,  70. 

Milner:  type  of  political  mind 
of,    8,    253,    262,    266,    329; 
quoted  on  trusts,  403. 
Ministry:  meaning  of  changes  in 

British,  7  et  seq. 
Money,  Sir  Leo  Chiozza:  quoted 
on  effect  of  war  on  work,  365, 
366. 

Monroe,  James,  323. 
Monroe  Doctrine,  321  et  seq. 
Montreal,  293. 
Moore,  George,  180. 
More,    Adelyne:    on    birth-con- 
trol, 390,  391. 
"Morning  Post"  (London),  266, 

293,  298. 

Morris,  William,  68,  67,  68,  90. 
Mounteagle,  188. 
Muir,        Professor        Ramsay: 
quoted  on  Irish  tradition,  175, 
176. 
Munition  factories:  future  uses 

of,  244,  245. 

Munitions:  relation  of,  to  labor 
problem,  18:  women  and,  20 
et  seq. 


sional  Women's  Suffrage  So- 
ciety, 103. 

National  Mission  of  Repentance 
and  Hope,  30. 

"National  Review,"  298. 

National  Sailors'  and  Firemen's 
Union,  285. 

Nationality,  326-336. 

Nelson,  Horatio,  3. 

"New  Age,"  274. 

New  Constitutional  Society, 
103. 

"New  Ireland":  editors  of,  264. 

"New  Republic":  264. 

"New  Statesman,"  274. 

New  Union,  103. 

"New  Witness,"  260-263. 

New  Zealand,  4. 

Newborough,  Lieutenant  Lord: 
extract  from  will  of,  412. 

Newman,  Sir  George:  quoted  on 
child  welfare,  407. 

Nicoll,  Robertson,  272. 

Nieuport,  70. 

North  Nibley:  war  fund  raised 
in,  236. 

Northampton:  war  subscription 
of,  237. 

Northcliffe,  Lord:  quoted  on 
British  army,  228,  248;  per- 
sonality of,  269;  influence  of, 
on  English  ideas,  270,  271,  295, 
811,  410,  411. 

Norwich:  war-savings  of,  237. 

Noyes,  Alfred,  279. 

"Observer,"  972,  411. 
Ostend,  70. 

Oxford:  influence  of,  on  class 
system,  28. 


Naquet,     Alfred:     quoted     on  Pankhurst,   Mrs.:  20,   159;   ef- 

birth-control,  391.  feet  of  war  on  militancy  of, 

"Nation,"  264-266.  254    et   seq.;   personality   of, 

National  Industrial  and  Profes-  258. 

430 


INDEX 


-  Pankhurst,  Sylvia,  101,  277. 
Parliament:    effect   of   war   on 
control  of,  over  industrial  leg- 
islation, 246  et  seq.;  decay  of, 
404-407. 

"Partition":  a  farce  comedy,  de- 
scribed, 193,  194. 
Patriotism:    local,   of    English- 
men, 412. 

Pauperism  in  Ireland,  206-227. 
Peace:     program     for    dealing 
with  unemployed  on  dawn  of, 
21  et  seq. 

Peasantry:  effect  of  class  sys- 
tem on,  28. 
People's    Suffrage    Federation, 

103. 

Personal-morality  campaign,  18. 
Picardy,  96,  278. 
Pitt,  William,  3. 
Platform  of  new  social  move- 
ment, 18  et  seq. 

Plunkett,  Horace,  179,  188,  363. 
Plunkett  House,  218. 
Poland,  96,  176. 

Police    Commissioner    of    Scot- 
land   Yard:    quoted    on    war 
spirit  of  English,  229. 
Policewomen  in  England,  154  et 

seq. 

Ponsonbyj  277. 
"Popular  Magazine,"  310. 
Preston:  war-savings  of,  238. 
Prince,  Morton,  323. 
Protective    agencies :    establish- 
ment of,  in  munitions  plants, 
25. 

Prothero,  269. 
Proud,  Miss:  quoted  on  women 

in  industry,  389. 
"Prussianism" :  fight  against,  42. 
Public  houses,  30. 
"Punch,"  268. 


"Quarterly  Review,"  274. 


Raemaekers,  270. 

Railroads:  inadequacy  of,  in 
Ireland,  216;  Belgium's  pro- 
portion of  light,  compared 
with  Great  Britain's,  386,  387; 
Irish,  397-400. 

"Railway  Review,"  285,  286. 

Rathbone,  Eleanor:  101;  cited 
on  military  and  naval  fem- 
inists, 119-121. 

Reconstruction :  demand  for 
state  and  industrial,  10  et 
seq. 

Recruits:  local  patriotism  of 
English,  332  et  seq. 

Redmond,  John:  leader  of  Irish 
Nationalists,  254,  255,  256. 

Reeves,  Mrs.  Pember,  101. 

Reid,  Archdall:  on  British  Com- 
monwealth, 412,  413. 

Rhondda,  Lord:  dictator  of 
Welsh  press,  246,  311,  379. 

Roads:  plan  for  improved,  23. 

Rockefeller,  John  D.,  404. 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  340. 

"Round  Table,  The":  59,  187, 
253,  273,  313;  quoted  on  Sir 
Hugh  Bell's  analysis  of  his 
expenses,  382. 

Roumania:  labor  societies  in, 
226. 

Rowntree,  Seebohm:  25,  62; 
quoted  on  modern  machinery, 
65;  welfare  work  of,  229,  269, 
313,  339,  350. 

Royden,  Maude,  101. 

Runciman,  Mr.:  quoted  on  Irish 
agricultural  conditions  due  to 
war,  401. 

Ruskin,  John,  67,  90. 
Russell,  Bertrand  A.  W.,  14. 

Russell,  Bertrand:  quoted  on 
race  decline,  122,  123;  author 
of  "Why  Men  Fight,"  265, 
275,  314. 


431 


INDEX 


Russell,  Earl:  on  right  of  asy- 
lum, 288. 

Russell,  George,  188,  198  et  seq., 
264.  See  A.  E. 

Russell,  T.  W.:  statement  of,  on 
transportation,  398;  cited  on 
Irish  acreage,  400. 

Russia:  need  of  leaders  to  deal 
with,  9 ;  influence  of  England's 
progress  upon,  64. 

Russian  peasantry  versus  Eng- 
lish masses,  31,  32. 

Russian  Political  Prisoners'  and 
Exiles'  Relief  committee,  286. 

Russian  refugees  in  England, 
283-291. 

Russian  Seamen's  Union,  284. 

Rutgers,  Dr.:  quoted  by  Frau 
Stritt,  390. 

Sainte-Beuve:  Lloyd-George 
compared  with,  340,  341. 

Saintsbury,  George,  314. 

Salvation  Army,  257. 

Samuel,  Herbert:  quoted  on 
Russian  refugees,  287,  288. 

Sanger,  Mrs.,  116. 

Sarno,  Charles,  287. 

"Saturday  Review,"  36,  266. 

Schoolboys:  war-savings  of, 
238. 

Scott:  Antarctic   explorer,  330. 

Shaw,  Bernard,  180,  272,  313. 

Sheffield,  Lord :  on  right  of  asy- 
lum, 288,  290. 

Shop  girl:  advantages  of  being 
a,  108. 

Siamese  Twin,  The  (Ulster), 
192-206. 

Sigerson,  Dora,  180. 

Sinn  Fein:  principle  of,  218. 

Slater,  Dr.  Gilbert:  quoted  on 
tenant  farmers,  361,  362. 

Snowden,  Philip,  62,  277. 


Snowden,  Mrs.  Philip,  101. 
Social  revolution  in  England,  14 

et  seq. 

Social  studies,  228-336. 
Social  workers:  part  played  in 

government        administration 

by,  246,  et  seq. 
Socialism:   in   Germany:    15    et 

seq.,  55,  368-380,  passim. 
Society   of   Women   Graduates, 

103. 
Soldiers,    post-bellum    problem 

of,  250,  251. 
South  Africa,  4. 
South  Wales,  9. 
Spalding,  H.  N.,  304,  339,  350. 
Spanish-American  War,  322. 
Speaker's  Franchise  Conference, 

395. 
"Spectator":  quoted  on  molding 

public  opinion,  248. 
"Springfield  Republican,"  271. 
Standardization:    effect    of,    of 

tools,  243  et  seq. 
Status  of  colonies :  change  of,  4 ; 

effect  of  war  on,  6  et  seq. 
Stephens,  James:  180:  quoted  on 

Irish  freedom,  197;  opinion  of, 

on  George  Russell,  198,  264. 
Stracliey,  St.  Loe,  248. 
Stritt,  Frau:  president  Woman 

Suffrage    Union,    quoted    on 

birth-control,  390. 
Suffrage:    societies,    103;    395- 

397.    See  Woman,  also  Wom- 
an question. 
Suffrage  Atelier,  103. 
Sutherland,  Duke  of:  quoted  on 

landed  property,  356,  357. 
Sweden:    in    relation   to    social 

problems,  69  et  seq. 
Sydney,  293. 

Syndicalism,   55,   363-380,   pas- 
sim. 


432 


INDEX 


Tables  of  wages  and  duties  of 

lady  help,  146-153. 
Tagore;  quoted  on  nationalism, 

327. 

Tammany  Hall,  102. 
Tariff:     attitude     of     England 
toward,  249,  250;   reform   in 
Great  Britain,  363-380,  407. 
Taxation:  pressure  of,  25:  so- 
lution   of    problem    of,    248, 
249. 
Taylor,    Frederick:    quoted    on 

social  reform,  78. 
Tenant    farmers:     in     Ireland, 

212  et  seq.,  357  et  seq. 
Tennant,   Mr.:   organization  of 

labor  forces  by,  49. 
Thorndike,  92. 

"Times"  (London)  36;  cited  on 
new  machinery  and  build- 
ings, 242  et  seq.;  quoted  on 
educational  status  of  miners, 
354,  355,  367. 

Tolstoy:  advice  of,  on  social  re- 
form, 78. 
"Top  Notch,"  310. 
Tory:  specific  meaning  of,  8. 
"Tory     Tradition,     The":     26; 
quoted   on  national  prosper- 
ity, 249. 

Town-planning :    reform    move- 
ment in,  for  workmen,  69,  70. 
Trade  Unions:  new  concessions 

of,  to  woman,  144,  395-397. 
Transportation:       cheap,       for 

workmen,  70. 
Trevelyan,  277,  300,  301. 
Trinity  College    (Dublin),  178, 

179. 

Trusts:    effect    of    mechanical 
standardization       on,       245 ; 
Lord  Rhondda  in  relation  to, 
246,  403,  404. 
"Truth,"  274. 


Turks:   relative  passive   resist- 
ance of  Englishmen  and,  89. 
Tynan,  Katharine,  180,  264. 

U-53,  317,  324. 

Ulster     (The    Siamese    Twin), 

192-206. 
United    States:    in    relation    to 

enduring   literature,   93,   243. 

See  America. 

Verdun:  176,  278;  Lloyd- 
George  at,  341. 

Wages:  influence  of,  on  social 
movement,  25:  key  to  prob- 
lem of,  49;  eifect  of  higher, 
on  workmen,  68;  relative,  of 
women  in  England  and  Amer- 
ica, 98  et  seq,;  post-bellum 
problem  of,  249  et  seq.;  la- 
bor's demand  for  higher,  383, 
384. 

Wallas,  Professor  Graham : 
opinion  of,  on  democratic 
control,  56;  quotation  from 
"The  Great  Society,"  by,  on 
the  rights  of  little  nations, 
211;  quoted  on  Walter  Lipp- 
man,  266,  289,  314. 

War:  influence  of,  on  plan  of 
British  Commonwealth,  6; 
tendency  of,  to  fertilize  radi- 
cal ideas,  14;  effect  of,  on 
trade  unions,  17;  eifect  of, 
on  England's  middle  class, 
33;  social  problem  created 
by,  228-352. 

War  conference:  influence  of,  on 
imperial  constitution,  4  et  seq. 

War  Council,  405. 

War  savings,  232  et  seq. 

War  work:  women  and,  106. 

Waterways:  plan  for,  23. 

Watson,  William,  272. 


433 


INDEX 


Watterson,  Colonel,  271. 

Webb,  Sidney:  13,  261;  quoted 
on  birth-control,  392. 

Webb,  Mrs.  Sidney,  101. 

Welfare:  work,  25  et  seq.;  ef- 
fect of,  department  of  gov- 
ernment on  relation  between 
employer  and  employed,  68. 

"Welfare  Work,"  by  Miss 
Proud:  quoted  on  women  in 
industry,  389,  390. 

Welldon,  Dean:  wisdom  of,  as 
a  leader,  29. 

Wellington,  Duke  of,  3. 

Wells,  H.  G.,  13,  248,  272,  313. 

"Welsh  Outlook":  quoted  on 
Lord  Rhondda's  dictatorship, 
246. 

"Westminster  Gazette,"  271. 

Wharton,  Edith,  272. 

Whitman,  Walt:  quoted  on  de- 
mocracy, 80. 

"Why  Men  Fight,"  by  Bertrand 
Russell:  quotation  from,  on 
birth-control,  114-116,  265, 
275. 

Wigstan  Magna:  record  of,  on 
war-savings  certificates,  236. 

Williams,  Captain  Basil:  quoted 
on  English  people,  240,  332. 

Wilson,  President  Woodrow: 
143;  quoted  on  present  war, 
317. 

Woman  question:  solution  of, 
19,  20;  full  exposition  of,  97- 
173,  395-397. 

"Woman  Worker":  organ  of 
women  trade-unionists,  quot- 
ed, 255,  256. 

Women:  services  of,  in  national 
industries,  20  et  seq.;  emanci- 
pation of,  95  et  seq.;  suffrage 
societies  of,  103;  war  work 
and,  106;  future  of,  in  Eng- 


land, 128  et  seq.;  Seebohm 
Rowntree's  work  in  behalf 
of,  135;  post-bellum  prospect 
for,  282;  in  industry,  389, 
390;  population  and,  390-393; 
increased  expenditure  of,  for 
clothes,  393-395. 

Women  police  service,  159. 

Woolf,  253. 

Workers'  control,  381-384. 

Workers'  Educational  Associa- 
tion, 77. 

Workmen:  effect  of  war  on 
efficiency  of,  16  et  seq.;  wishes 
of,  44,  45 ;  attitude  of,  toward 
modern  machinery,  66;  ef- 
fect of  leisure  on,  68;  condi- 
tion of,  after  hours,  69,  70; 
mission  of,  75  et  seq.;  atti- 
tude of  English,  toward  pa- 
triotism, 275  et  seq.;  produc- 
tive power  of,  during  war, 
365,  366. 

Workshop  councils :  meaning 
of,  50  et  seq.,  380. 

Yarmouth:  Zeppelins  at,  incen- 
tive to  war  subscription,  236. 

Yeats,  180. 

"Yorkshire  Factory  Times," 
285,  286. 

Young  England:  voice  of,  on 
solution  of  Irish  question, 
quotation,  186-191. 

Younger  Suffragists,  103. 

Ypres,  96. 

Zele,  70. 

Zimmern,  A.  E.:  views  of,  on 
pioneers  of  social  reform,  89 
et  seq.,  269,  273,  304;  quoted 
on  nationality,  328;  cited  on 
backward  races,  407,  408. 


434 


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